5.3 KiB
Contributing to bitcore-node
Quick Checklist
Make sure:
gulp lintdoesn't complain about your changesgulp testpasses all the testsgulp coveragecovers 100% of the branches of your code
Design Guidelines
These are some global design goals in bitcore that any change must adhere.
D1 - Naming Matters
We take our time with picking names. Code is going to be written once, and read hundreds of times.
We were inspired to name this rule first due to Uncle Bob's great work Clean Code, which has a whole chapter on this subject.
D2 - Tests
Write a test for all your code. We encourage Test Driven Development so we know when our code is right. We have increased test coverage from 80% to around 95% and are targeting 100% as we move towards our 1.0 release.
Style Guidelines
The design guidelines have quite a high abstraction level. These style guidelines are more concrete and easier to apply, and also more opinionated. The design guidelines mentioned above are the way we think about general software development and we believe they should be present in any software project.
General
G0 - Default to Felixge's Style Guide
Follow this Node.js Style Guide: https://github.com/felixge/node-style-guide#nodejs-style-guide
G1 - No Magic Numbers
Avoid constants in the code as much as possible. Magic strings are also magic numbers.
G2 - Internal Objects Should be Instances
If a class has a publicKey member, for instance, that should be a PublicKey instance.
G3 - Internal Amounts Must be Integers Representing Satoshis
Avoid representation errors by always dealing with satoshis. For conversion for frontends, use the Unit class.
G4 - Internal Network References Must be Network Instances
A special case for G2 all network references must be Network instances (see bitcore/lib/network.js), but when returned to the user, its .name property should be used.
G5 - Objects Should Display Nicely in the Console
Write a .inspect() method so an instance can be easily debugged in the console.
G6 - Naming Utility Namespaces
Name them in CamelCase, as they are namespaces.
DO:
var BufferUtil = require('./util/buffer');
DON'T:
var bufferUtil = require('./util/buffer');
Interface
I1 - Code that Fails Early
In order to deal with JavaScript's weak typing and confusing errors, we ask our code to fail as soon as possible when an unexpected input was provided.
There's a module called util/preconditions, loosely based on preconditions.js, based on guava, that we use for state and argument checking. It should be trivial to use. We recommend using it on all methods, in order to improve robustness and consistency.
$.checkState(something === anotherthing, 'Expected something to be anotherthing');
$.checkArgument(something < 100, 'something', 'must be less than 100');
$.checkArgumentType(something, PrivateKey, 'something'); // The third argument is a helper to mention the name of the argument
$.checkArgumentType(something, PrivateKey); // but it's optional (will show up as "(unknown argument)")
Testing
T1 - Tests Must be Written Elegantly
Style guidelines are not relaxed for tests. Tests are a good way to show how to use the library, and maintaining them is extremely necessary.
Don't write long tests, write helper functions to make them be as short and concise as possible (they should take just a few lines each), and use good variable names.
T2 - Tests Must not be Random
Inputs for tests should not be generated randomly. Also, the type and structure of outputs should be checked.
T3 - Data for Tests Included in a JSON File
If possible, data for tests should be included in a JSON file in the test/data directory. This improves interoperability with other libraries and keeps tests cleaner.
Pull Request Workflow
Our workflow is based on GitHub's pull requests. We use feature branches, prepended with: test, feature, fix, refactor, or remove according to the change the branch introduces. Some examples for such branches are:
git checkout -b test/some-module
git checkout -b feature/some-new-stuff
git checkout -b fix/some-bug
git checkout -b remove/some-file
We expect pull requests to be rebased to the master branch before merging:
git remote add bitpay git@github.com:bitpay/bitcore-node.git
git pull --rebase bitpay master
Note that we require rebasing your branch instead of merging it, for commit readability reasons.
After that, you can push the changes to your fork, by doing:
git push origin your_branch_name
git push origin feature/some-new-stuff
git push origin fix/some-bug
Finally go to github.com/bitpay/bitcore-node in your web browser and issue a new pull request.
Main contributors will review your code and possibly ask for changes before your code is pulled in to the main repository. We'll check that all tests pass, review the coding style, and check for general code correctness. If everything is OK, we'll merge your pull request and your code will be part of bitcore.
If you have any questions feel free to post them to github.com/bitpay/bitcore-node/issues.
Thanks for your time and code!