Contributing to Optiland

Thank you for your interest in contributing to Optiland! Contributions are welcome in many forms, including but not limited to:

Bug reports and feature requests.
Code contributions and pull requests.
Improvements to documentation and examples.

How to Contribute

Start with an issue. Before beginning work, check whether there’s already an open issue for the feature or bug you want to work on. If not, please open one first. This helps others know what’s in progress and avoid duplicating effort.
Let others know you’re working on it. If you’d like to work on an issue, leave a comment to say so. You can also request to be assigned, but this is optional — the goal is just to keep communication open.
Fork the repository on GitHub.
Clone your forked repository locally.
Create a new branch for your feature or bugfix.
Commit your changes with clear commit messages.
Push your changes to your fork.
Open a pull request with a detailed description of your changes.

Task Workflow and Coordination

We use a lightweight workflow to help contributors collaborate smoothly and avoid duplicated effort:

Each task should have an issue on GitHub. If you’re working on something new, check for an existing issue or open a new one. This keeps the project transparent and easier to coordinate.
Leave a comment on the issue if you plan to work on it. Optionally, you can be assigned the issue to make your involvement visible.
Progress is tracked using GitHub Projects (kanban). Issues are moved across columns such as “To Do”, “In Progress”, and “In Review”. You can view the board here: Optiland GitHub Project. If you don’t have permission to move cards, maintainers will update them based on issue comments.
Milestones help plan releases. Larger features and grouped improvements may be linked to a milestone. If you’re contributing to a milestone, try to complete the work in time — but there’s no strict deadline.

If you start working on something but can’t finish it, just leave a note in the issue. That way, someone else can take over if needed.

Guidelines

Coding Style: Follow the project’s style guidelines. We use automated tools (e.g., Ruff) to enforce code formatting and linting.
Testing: Write tests for new features and bug fixes. Ensure all tests pass before submitting a pull request.
Documentation: Update documentation and examples as necessary.
Commit Messages: Use clear and descriptive commit messages.

Code Style Guidelines

Please adhere to the following guidelines when contributing.

General Style Rules

Follow PEP 8 for code style.
Use meaningful variable names that clearly describe their purpose.

Formatting and Linting

We use Ruff for both linting and formatting. Formatting and linting are automatically enforced in pull requests through a GitHub Action and must pass before merging.

To ensure compliance before committing, install pre-commit and set up the hook:

pip install pre-commit
pre-commit install

This will manually install the pre-commit hooks from the .pre-commit-config.yaml file in your local Optiland repository. The pre-commit hooks will automatically run Ruff checks on staged files before committing.

To manually run Ruff checks before committing, use:

pre-commit run --all-files

Ruff can be used to automatically apply fixes for formatting and linting issues where possible. To do this, first install Ruff:

pip install ruff

Then, you can run Ruff to automatically fix issues in your code:

ruff format .

Key Formatting Rules:

Keep line length to a maximum of 88 characters.
Use spaces instead of tabs for indentation.
Organize imports as follows:
1. Standard library imports
2. Third-party library imports
3. Local module imports
Example:
```
import os
import numpy as np
from optiland.analysis import SpotDiagram
```

Docstrings and Comments

Write docstrings for all public functions, classes, and modules using the Google docstring style.
Use inline comments sparingly and only when necessary to explain complex logic.

Testing

Write tests for new features or bug fixes in the tests/ directory.
Use pytest for running tests:
```
pytest
```
Run tests with coverage before submitting a PR:
```
pytest --cov=optiland --cov-report=xml
```

Reporting Issues

If you encounter any bugs or issues, please report them on our GitHub issue tracker. Include detailed steps to reproduce the issue, along with any relevant logs or error messages.

Thank you for contributing to Optiland!