Everyone is welcome to contribute code to Matrix (https://github.com/matrix-org), provided that they are willing to license their contributions under the same license as the project itself. We follow a simple 'inbound=outbound' model for contributions: the act of submitting an 'inbound' contribution means that the contributor agrees to license the code under the same terms as the project's overall 'outbound' license - in our case, this is almost always Apache Software License v2 (see LICENSE).
The preferred and easiest way to contribute changes to Matrix is to fork the relevant project on github, and then create a pull request to ask us to pull your changes into our repo.
We use Github Actions for continuous integration. If your change breaks the build, this will be shown in GitHub, so please keep an eye on the pull request for feedback.
To run unit tests in a local development environment, you can use yarn test
and yarn lint.
For integration testing, and spinning up a local synapse we use mx-tester. While not required for basic changes, it is strongly recommended to use mx-tester or have the ability to spin up your own development Synapse to develop mjolnir interactively.
To install mx-tester you will need the rust toolchain
and Docker. You should refer to your linux distribution's documentation
for installing both, and do not naively follow the instructions
from rustup.rs without doing so first.
Then you will be able to install mx-tester with cargo install mx-tester.
Updating mx-tester can be done by installing cargo install cargo-update
and using cargo install-update mx-tester, though you may skip
this step until it is necessary to update mx-tester.
You can then start a local synapse using mx-tester build,
followed by mx-tester up. You can then use up, down as many
times as you like.
If for some reason you need to get a clean Synapse database,
you can just use mx-tester down build.
For debugging mx-tester it is recommended to use Visual Studio Code.
If you open the project in visual studio code, press F1,
type Debug: JavaScript Debug Terminal
(see the documentation),
and you should get a terminal from which node will always connect to
Visual Studio Code.
The following sections assume that a Synapse is running
and config/harness.yaml has been configured to connect to it.
If you are using mx-tester and you use mx-tester up, this will
already be the case.
If you need to debug an issue that is occurring through use in matrix,
say the unban command has stopped working, you can launch
mjolnir from the JavaScript Debug Terminal using yarn test:manual.
This will launch mjolnir using the config found in config/harness.yaml.
You can now open https://app.element.io, change the server to localhost:8081,
and then create an account.
From here you can join the room #moderators:localhost:9999 (you will also be
able to find it in the rooms directory) and interact with mjolnir.
It is recommended to set breakpoints in the editor while interacting and switch the tab to "DEBUG CONSOLE" (within Visual Studio Code) to evaluate arbitrary expressions in the currently paused context (when a breakpoint has been hit).
To debug the integration test suite from the JavaScript Debug Terminal,
you can start them using yarn test:integration.
However, more often than not there is a specific section of
code you will be working on that has specific tests. Running
the entire suite is therefore unnecessary.
To run a specific test from the JavaScript Debug Terminal,
you can use the script yarn test:integration:single test/integration/banListTest.ts,
where test/integration/banListTest.ts is the name of the integration test you
want to run.
All Matrix projects have a well-defined code-style - and sometimes we've even
got as far as documenting it... Mjolnir's code style is a relatively standard
TypeScript project - run yarn lint to see how your code fairs.
Before pushing new changes, ensure they don't produce linting errors.
Please ensure your changes match the cosmetic style of the existing project, and never mix cosmetic and functional changes in the same commit, as it makes it horribly hard to review otherwise.
In order to have a concrete record that your contribution is intentional and you agree to license it under the same terms as the project's license, we've adopted the same lightweight approach that the Linux Kernel submitting patches process, Docker, and many other projects use: the DCO (Developer Certificate of Origin: http://developercertificate.org/). This is a simple declaration that you wrote the contribution or otherwise have the right to contribute it to Matrix:
Developer Certificate of Origin
Version 1.1
Copyright (C) 2004, 2006 The Linux Foundation and its contributors.
660 York Street, Suite 102,
San Francisco, CA 94110 USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this
license document, but changing it is not allowed.
Developer's Certificate of Origin 1.1
By making a contribution to this project, I certify that:
(a) The contribution was created in whole or in part by me and I
have the right to submit it under the open source license
indicated in the file; or
(b) The contribution is based upon previous work that, to the best
of my knowledge, is covered under an appropriate open source
license and I have the right under that license to submit that
work with modifications, whether created in whole or in part
by me, under the same open source license (unless I am
permitted to submit under a different license), as indicated
in the file; or
(c) The contribution was provided directly to me by some other
person who certified (a), (b) or (c) and I have not modified
it.
(d) I understand and agree that this project and the contribution
are public and that a record of the contribution (including all
personal information I submit with it, including my sign-off) is
maintained indefinitely and may be redistributed consistent with
this project or the open source license(s) involved.
If you agree to this for your contribution, then all that's needed is to include the line in your commit or pull request comment:
Signed-off-by: Your Name <[email protected]>
We accept contributions under a legally identifiable name, such as your name on government documentation or common-law names (names claimed by legitimate usage or repute). Unfortunately, we cannot accept anonymous contributions at this time.
Git allows you to add this signoff automatically when using the -s
flag to git commit, which uses the name and email set in your
user.name and user.email git configs.
That's it! Matrix is a very open and collaborative project as you might expect given our obsession with open communication. If we're going to successfully matrix together all the fragmented communication technologies out there we are reliant on contributions and collaboration from the community to do so. So please get involved - and we hope you have as much fun hacking on Matrix as we do!