Pull requests are merged via Github, you can find the documentation about how to fork a repository and start contributing to Joomla here https://help.github.com/articles/fork-a-repo.
All contributions are welcome to be submitted for review for inclusion in the Joomla Framework, but before they will be accepted, we ask that you follow these simple steps:
Please be patient as not all items will be tested or reviewed immediately by a Framework maintainer team.
Also be receptive to feedback about your additions or changes to the Framework. The maintainer team and other community members may make suggestions or ask questions about your change. This is part of the review process, and helps everyone to understand what is happening, why it is happening, and potentially optimize your code.
If you need some ideas about what you can do, you will find tasks on the Issues list. All tasks are allocated to a milestone, usually representing a quarter of the calendar year. The milestones should be used as a guide to when various tasks should be done, but there is generally no problem doing tasks out of order (providing there are no dependancy problems).
All tasks are labelled into broad groups. For example, the backlog label shows all the tasks that need to be competed to "catch up" on work that was missed out in previous versions of the Framework.
Ideally, everybody who contributes to the Joomla Framework, or any other Open Source Matters supported project for that matter, should sign a Joomla Contributor Agreement (JCA).
But, we are aware that some contributors will not want to take the extra effort, especially for one-time contributors of modest amounts of code. As a compromise, the Joomla Project requires a JCA from anybody who makes a significant contribution to Joomla or any other OSM project. "Significant" is, of course, a judgment call. As a general guideline, if you as an individual have contributed or intend to contribute over 100 lines of code to the Joomla Framework, we need a JCA.
If you are contributing as an employee of a company (that is, the work you are contributing was done on company time) then we need a JCA with your company no matter how small the contribution is.
The submitted code must be compatible with the Joomla coding standard. You can read about the Joomla coding standards here:
There is a tool called PHP Code Sniffer that allows you to validate your code against the Joomla coding standard.
It must be installed via PEAR, open a terminal and type the command :
pear install PHP_CodeSniffer
Once PHP Code Sniffer is installed you need to install the Joomla Standard.
git clone http://github.com/joomla/coding-standards.git `pear config-get php_dir`/PHP/CodeSniffer/Standards/Joomla
Now the Joomla coding Standard is installed, you can start validating your code style.
phpcs --standard=Joomla path/to/code/
Some editors support PHP Code Sniffer as a plugin or a built in feature. It will allow you to see if your code matches the Joomla standard directly in your editor.
Eclipse : http://www.websitefactors.co.uk/php/2011/10/installing-php-codesniffer-properly-in-eclipse/
PHPStorm : http://www.jetbrains.com/phpstorm/webhelp/using-php-code-sniffer-tool.html
Sublime Text : http://www.soulbroken.co.uk/code/sublimephpcs/
You can find configuration files for your editor formatter on this repository : https://github.com/joomla/coding-standards/tree/master/IDE
Download the repository content via the Zip button and import the appropriate .xml file into your editor.
Whether your pull request is a bug fix or introduces new classes or methods to the Framework, we ask that you include unit tests for your changes.
We understand that not all users submitting pull requests will be proficient with PHPUnit. The maintainers and community as a whole are a helpful group and can help you with writing tests.
The PHPUnit manual contains all the documentation you need in order to install it and begin to write unit tests : http://www.phpunit.de/manual/current/en/.
Documentation for each package in the Joomla Framework can be found in the README.me file in the main package folder. The file uses Github flavoured Markdown format. You can find out more about this format at http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax.
When contributing new features to existing packages, please add notes about the new features to the existing README.md files in the packages you change.
When submitting new packages, documentation in the form of a README.md file will be required with your pull request.
The package documentation should explain how a developer should should be able to get started using the code in the package. The documentation should explain an explanation of the classes and/or interfaces and provide several simple examples.