Contributing

Araru is developed across independent repositories. Contributions may improve the Server and Web services, documentation, translations, tests, infrastructure, accessibility, or project design.

Choose a contribution path

• Contributing to services covers Server, Web, runtime, API, database, cache, readers, tests, and operational changes.
• Contributing to documentation covers Astro/Starlight, writing, translations, navigation, links, and local validation.

Shared workflow

1. Read the repository README.md, CONTRIBUTING.md, and SECURITY.md before changing code.
2. Search existing issues and discussions to avoid duplicate work.
3. Open an issue or discussion before large, architectural, breaking, or security-sensitive changes.
4. Fork or clone only the repository being changed and create a focused feature/*, fix/*, or docs/* branch.
5. Keep the change small, preserve public contracts, and add validation proportional to its risk.
6. Run the repository checks locally and update documentation when behavior changes.
7. Open a pull request describing the problem, solution, validation, risks, compatibility, and screenshots when relevant.

Contribution rules

• Use clear commits that contain one logical change.
• Do not commit personal libraries, copyrighted books, generated databases, caches, .env files, tokens, passwords, or private URLs.
• Do not describe planned capabilities as released.
• Preserve opaque IDs, API routes, migration history, filesystem category behavior, and HTTP Range contracts unless an approved change explicitly replaces them.
• Add an ADR for decisions that materially alter architecture, persistence, security, or repository boundaries.
• Treat accessibility, responsive behavior, internationalization, and backward compatibility as acceptance criteria.

Conduct and security

Be respectful and keep technical discussion focused on the work. Report vulnerabilities privately using the instructions in the affected repository’s SECURITY.md; never disclose an exploitable issue in a public ticket.

By contributing, you agree that your changes are distributed under the repository license, currently AGPL-3.0-only unless that repository states otherwise.