<!--
Copyright (C) Daniel Stenberg, <daniel@haxx.se>, et al.

SPDX-License-Identifier: curl
-->

# Contributing to the curl project

This document is intended to offer guidelines on how to best contribute to the
curl project. This concerns new features as well as corrections to existing
flaws or bugs.

## Join the Community

Skip over to [https://curl.se/mail/](https://curl.se/mail/) and join
the appropriate mailing list(s). Read up on details before you post
questions. Read this file before you start sending patches. We prefer
questions sent to and discussions being held on the mailing list(s), not sent
to individuals.

Before posting to one of the curl mailing lists, please read up on the
[mailing list etiquette](https://curl.se/mail/etiquette.html).

We also hang out on IRC in #curl on libera.chat

If you are at all interested in the code side of things, consider clicking
'watch' on the [curl repository on GitHub](https://github.com/curl/curl) to be
notified of pull requests and new issues posted there.

## License and copyright

When contributing with code, you agree to put your changes and new code under
the same license curl and libcurl is already using unless stated and agreed
otherwise.

If you add a larger piece of code, you can opt to make that file or set of
files to use a different license as long as they do not enforce any changes to
the rest of the package and they make sense. Such "separate parts" can not be
GPL licensed (as we do not want copyleft to affect users of libcurl) but they
must use "GPL compatible" licenses (as we want to allow users to use libcurl
properly in GPL licensed environments).

When changing existing source code, you do not alter the copyright of the
original file(s). The copyright is still owned by the original creator(s) or
those who have been assigned copyright by the original author(s).

By submitting a patch to the curl project, you are assumed to have the right
to the code and to be allowed by your employer or whatever to hand over that
patch/code to us. We credit you for your changes as far as possible, to give
credit but also to keep a trace back to who made what changes. Please always
provide us with your full real name when contributing.

## What To Read

Source code, the man pages, the [INTERNALS
document](https://curl.se/dev/internals.html),
[TODO](https://curl.se/docs/todo.html),
[KNOWN_BUGS](https://curl.se/docs/knownbugs.html) and the [most recent
changes](https://curl.se/dev/sourceactivity.html) in git. Lurking on the
[curl-library mailing list](https://curl.se/mail/list.cgi?list=curl-library)
gives you a lot of insights on what's going on right now. Asking there is a
good idea too.

## Write a good patch

### Follow code style

When writing C code, follow the
[CODE_STYLE](https://curl.se/dev/code-style.html) already established in
the project. Consistent style makes code easier to read and mistakes less
likely to happen. Run `make checksrc` before you submit anything, to make sure
you follow the basic style. That script does not verify everything, but if it
complains you know you have work to do.

### Non-clobbering All Over

When you write new functionality or fix bugs, it is important that you do not
fiddle all over the source files and functions. Remember that it is likely
that other people have done changes in the same source files as you have and
possibly even in the same functions. If you bring completely new
functionality, try writing it in a new source file. If you fix bugs, try to
fix one bug at a time and send them as separate patches.

### Write Separate Changes

It is annoying when you get a huge patch from someone that is said to fix 11
odd problems, but discussions and opinions do not agree with 10 of them - or 9
of them were already fixed in a different way. Then the person merging this
change needs to extract the single interesting patch from somewhere within the
huge pile of source, and that creates a lot of extra work.

Preferably, each fix that corrects a problem should be in its own patch/commit
with its own description/commit message stating exactly what they correct so
that all changes can be selectively applied by the maintainer or other
interested parties.

Also, separate changes enable bisecting much better for tracking problems
and regression in the future.

### Patch Against Recent Sources

Please try to get the latest available sources to make your patches against.
It makes the lives of the developers so much easier. The best is if you get
the most up-to-date sources from the git repository, but the latest release
archive is OK as well.

### Documentation

Writing docs is dead boring and one of the big problems with many open source
projects but someone's gotta do it. It makes things a lot easier if you submit
a small description of your fix or your new features with every contribution
so that it can be swiftly added to the package documentation.

Documentation is mostly provided as man pages or plain ASCII files. The
man pages are rendered from their source files that are usually written using
markdown. Most HTML files on the website and in the release archives are
generated from corresponding markdown and ASCII files.

### Test Cases

Since the introduction of the test suite, we can quickly verify that the main
features are working as they are supposed to. To maintain this situation and
improve it, all new features and functions that are added need to be tested in
the test suite. Every feature that is added should get at least one valid test
case that verifies that it works as documented. If every submitter also posts
a few test cases, it does not end up a heavy burden on a single person.

If you do not have test cases or perhaps you have done something that is hard
to write tests for, do explain exactly how you have otherwise tested and
verified your changes.

# Submit Your Changes

## Get your changes merged

Ideally you file a [pull request on
GitHub](https://github.com/curl/curl/pulls), but you can also send your plain
patch to [the curl-library mailing
list](https://curl.se/mail/list.cgi?list=curl-library).

If you opt to post a patch on the mailing list, chances are someone converts
it into a pull request for you, to have the CI jobs verify it proper before it
can be merged. Be prepared that some feedback on the proposed change might
then come on GitHub.

As your changes are reviewed and discussed, you are expected to address any
flaws pointed out and update accordingly. Otherwise your changes risk stalling
and eventually being deleted without action. As a submitter of a change, you
are the owner of that change until it has been merged.

Respond on the list or on GitHub about the change and answer questions and/or
fix nits/flaws. This is important. We take lack of replies as a sign that you
are not anxious to get your patch accepted and we tend to drop such
changes.

## About pull requests

With GitHub it is easy to send a [pull
request](https://github.com/curl/curl/pulls) to the curl project to have
changes merged.

We strongly prefer pull requests to mailed patches, as it makes it a proper
git commit that is easy to merge and they are easy to track and not that easy
to lose in the flood of many emails, like they sometimes do on the mailing
lists.

Every pull request submitted is automatically tested in several different
ways. [See the CI document for more
information](https://github.com/curl/curl/blob/master/docs/tests/CI.md).

Sometimes the tests fail due to a dependency service temporarily being offline
or otherwise unavailable, e.g. package downloads. In this case you can try to
update your pull requests to rerun the tests later as described below.

You can update your pull requests by pushing new commits or force-pushing
changes to existing commits. Force-pushing an amended commit without any
actual content changed also allows you to retrigger the tests for that commit.

When you adjust your pull requests after review, consider squashing the
commits so that we can review the full updated version more easily.

A pull request sent to the project might get labeled `needs-votes` by a
project maintainer. This label means that in addition to meeting all other
checks and qualifications this pull request must also receive more "votes" of
user support. More signs that people want this to happen. It could be in the
form of messages saying so, or thumbs-up reactions on GitHub.

## When the pull request is approved

If it does not seem to get approved when you think it is ready - feel free to
ask for approval.

Once your pull request has been approved it can be merged by a maintainer.

For new features, or changes, we require that the *feature window* is open for
the pull request to be merged. This is typically a three week period that
starts ten days after a previous release. New features submitted as pull
requests while the window is closed have to wait until it opens to get
merged.

If time passes without your approved pull request gets merged: feel free to
ask what more you can do to make it happen.

## Making quality changes

Make the patch against as recent source versions as possible.

If you have followed the tips in this document and your patch still has not
been incorporated or responded to after some weeks, consider resubmitting it
to the list or better yet: change it to a pull request.

## Commit messages

How to write git commit messages in the curl project.

    ---- start ----
    [area]: [short line describing the main effect]
           -- empty line --
    [full description, no wider than 72 columns that describes as much as
    possible as to why this change is made, and possibly what things
    it fixes and everything else that is related,
    -- end --

The first line is a succinct description of the change and should ideally work
as a single line in the RELEASE NOTES.

- use the imperative, present tense: **change** not "changed" nor "changes"
- do not capitalize the first letter
- no period (.) at the end

The `[area]` in the first line can be `http2`, `cookies`, `openssl` or
similar. There is no fixed list to select from but using the same "area" as
other related changes could make sense.

## Commit message keywords

Use the following ways to improve the message and provide pointers to related
work.

- `Follow-up to {shorthash}` - if this fixes or continues a previous commit;
  add a `Ref:` that commit's PR or issue if it is not a small, obvious fix;
  followed by an empty line

- `Bug: URL` to the source of the report or more related discussion; use
  `Fixes` for GitHub issues instead when that is appropriate.

- `Approved-by: John Doe` - credit someone who approved the PR.

- `Authored-by: John Doe` - credit the original author of the code; only use
  this if you cannot use `git commit --author=...`.

- `Signed-off-by: John Doe` - we do not use this, but do not bother removing
  it.

- `whatever-else-by:` credit all helpers, finders, doers; try to use one of
  the following keywords if at all possible, for consistency: `Acked-by:`,
  `Assisted-by:`, `Co-authored-by:`, `Found-by:`, `Reported-by:`,
  `Reviewed-by:`, `Suggested-by:`, `Tested-by:`.

- `Ref: #1234` - if this is related to a GitHub issue or PR, possibly one that
  has already been closed.

- `Ref: URL` to more information about the commit; use `Bug:` instead for a
  reference to a bug on another bug tracker.

- `Fixes #1234` - if this fixes a GitHub issue; GitHub closes the issue once
  this commit is merged.

- `Closes #1234` - if this merges a GitHub PR; GitHub closes the PR once this
  commit is merged.

Do not forget to use commit with `--author` if you commit someone else's work,
and make sure that you have your own user and email setup correctly in git
before you commit.

Add whichever header lines as appropriate, with one line per person if more
than one person was involved. There is no need to credit yourself unless you
are using `--author` which hides your identity. Do not include people's email
addresses in headers to avoid spam, unless they are already public from a
previous commit; saying `{userid} on github` is OK.

## Push Access

If you are a frequent contributor, you may be given push access to the git
repository and then you are able to push your changes straight into the git
repository instead of sending changes as pull requests or by mail as patches.

Feel free to ask for this, if this is what you want. You are required to have
posted several high quality patches first, before you can be granted push
access.

## Useful resources

- [Webinar on getting code into curl](https://youtu.be/QmZ3W1d6LQI)

# Update copyright and license information

There is a CI job called **REUSE compliance / check** that runs on every pull
request and commit to verify that the *REUSE state* of all files are still
fine.

This means that all files need to have their license and copyright information
clearly stated. Ideally by having the standard curl source code header, with
the `SPDX-License-Identifier` included. If the header does not work, you can
use a smaller header or add the information for a specific file to the
`REUSE.toml` file.

You can manually verify the copyright and compliance status by running the
[REUSE helper tool](https://github.com/fsfe/reuse-tool): `reuse lint`

# On AI use in curl

Guidelines for AI use when contributing to curl.

## For security reports and other issues

If you asked an AI tool to find problems in curl, you **must** make sure to
reveal this fact in your report.

You must also double-check the findings carefully before reporting them to us
to validate that the issues are indeed existing and working exactly as the AI
says. AI-based tools frequently generate inaccurate or fabricated results.

Further: it is *rarely* a good idea to copy and paste an AI generated report
to the project. Those generated reports typically are too wordy and rarely to
the point (in addition to the common fabricated details). If you actually find
a problem with an AI and you have verified it yourself to be true: write the
report yourself and explain the problem as you have learned it. This makes
sure the AI-generated inaccuracies and invented issues are filtered out early
before they waste more people's time.

As we take security reports seriously, we investigate each report with
priority. This work is both time and energy consuming and pulls us away from
doing other meaningful work. Fake and otherwise made up security problems
effectively prevent us from doing real project work and make us waste time and
resources.

We ban users immediately who submit made up fake reports to the project.

## For pull requests

When contributing content to the curl project, you give us permission to use
it as-is and you must make sure you are allowed to distribute it to us. By
submitting a change to us, you agree that the changes can and should be
adopted by curl and get redistributed under the curl license. Authors should
be explicitly aware that the burden is on them to ensure no unlicensed code is
submitted to the project.

This is independent if AI is used or not.

When contributing a pull request you should of course always make sure that
the proposal is good quality and a best effort that follows our guidelines. A
basic rule of thumb is that if someone can spot that the contribution was made
with the help of AI, you have more work to do.

We can accept code written with the help of AI into the project, but the code
must still follow coding standards, be written clearly, be documented, feature
test cases and adhere to all the normal requirements we have.

## For translation

Translation services help users write reports, texts and documentation in
non-native languages and we encourage and welcome such contributors and
contributions.

As AI-based translation tools sometimes have a way to make the output sound a
little robotic and add an "AI tone" to the text, you may want to consider
mentioning that you used such a tool. Failing to do so risks that maintainers
wrongly dismiss translated texts as AI slop.
