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contributing.md

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Aries RFCs

Contributing

Do you need an RFC?

Use an RFC to advocate substantial changes to the Aries ecosystem, where those changes need to be understood by developers who use Aries. Minor changes are not RFC-worthy, and changes that are internal in nature, invisible to those consuming Aries, should be documented elsewhere.

Preparation

Before writing an RFC, consider exploring the idea on the aries chat channel, on community calls (see the Hyperledger Community Calendar), or on aries@lists.hyperledger.org. Encouraging feedback from maintainers is a good sign that you're on the right track.

How to propose an RFC

  • Fork the RFC repo.
  • Pick a descriptive folder name for your RFC. Don't pick a number yet. See Best Practices: RFC Naming for guidance.
  • Decide which parent folder is appropriate for your RFC. If it is about a specific protocol or decorator or feature, its parent should be /features; if it is about a concept that will be used in many different features, its parent should be /concepts.
  • Create the folder and copy either 0000-template.md or 0000-template-protocol.md (if your RFC is for a protocol) to <parent>/<your folder name>/README.md.
  • Fill in the RFC. Use MUST and SHOULD per standard conventions. Put care into the details: RFCs that do not present convincing motivation, demonstrate an understanding of the impact of the design, or are disingenuous about the drawbacks or alternatives tend to be poorly received. You can add supporting artifacts, such as diagrams and sample data, in the RFC's folder. Make sure you follow community-endorsed best practices.
  • Consider how the RFC should be tagged.
  • Assign a number to your RFC. Get the number by loading this web page (or, if you want to do it the hard way, by inspecting open and closed PRs against this repo to figure out what the next PR number will be). Rename your folder from <your folder name> to <your 4-digit number>-<your folder name>. At the top of your README.md, modify the title so it is in the form: <your 4-digit number>: Friendly Version of Your Title.
  • Commit and push your changes.
  • Submit a pull request.

Make sure that all of your commits satisfy the DCO requirements of the repo and conform to the license restrictions noted below.

The RFC Maintainers will check to see if the process has been followed, and request any process changes before merging the PR.

When the PR is merged, your RFC is now formally in the PROPOSED state.

Changing an RFC Status

The lifecycle of an RFC is driven by the author or current champion of the RFC. To move an RFC along in the lifecycle, submit a PR with the following characteristics:

  • The PR should ONLY change the RFC status. Note that this requires refreshing the index (python code/generate_index.py && pytest code).
  • The title of the PR should include a deadline date for merging the PR and the referenced RFC.
    • Example: Status to Accepted, deadline 2019.08.15, RFC 0095-basic-message
  • The PR comment should document why the status is being changed.
  • The deadline date should be 2 weeks after announcing the proposed status change on an Aries WG call. The PR should also be announced on the #aries channel.
  • Barring negative feedback from the community, the repo's maintainers should merge the PR after the deadline.
  • The deadline should be moved by two weeks after addressing each substantive change to the RFC made during the status change review period.

How to get an RFC demonstrated

If your RFC is a feature, it's common (though not strictly required) for it to go to a DEMONSTRATED state next. Write some code that embodies the concepts in the RFC. Publish the code. Then submit a PR that adds your early implementation to the Implementations section, and that changes the status to DEMONSTRATED. These PRs should be accepted immediately, as long as all unit tests pass.

How to get an RFC accepted

After your RFC is merged and officially acquires the PROPOSED status, the RFC will receive feedback from the larger community, and the author should be prepared to revise it. Updates may be made via pull request, and those changes will be merged as long as the process is followed.

When you believe that the RFC is mature enough (feedback is somewhat resolved, consensus is emerging, and implementation against it makes sense), submit a PR that changes the status to ACCEPTED. The status change PR will remain open until the maintainers agree on the status change.

NOTE: contributors who used the Indy HIPE process prior to May 2019 should see the acceptance process substantially simplified under this approach. The bar for acceptance is not perfect consensus and all issues resolved; it's just general agreement that a doc is "close enough" that it makes sense to put it on a standards track where it can be improved as implementation teaches us what to tweak.

How to get an RFC adopted

An accepted RFC is a standards-track document. It becomes an acknowledged standard when there is evidence that the community is deriving meaningful value from it. So:

  • Implement the ideas, and find out who else is implementing.
  • Socialize the ideas. Use them in other RFCs and documentation.
  • Update the agent test suite to reflect the ideas.

When you believe an RFC is a de facto standard, raise a PR that changes the status to ADOPTED. If the community is friendly to the idea, the doc will enter a two-week "Final Comment Period" (FCP), after which there will be a vote on disposition.

Intellectual Property

This repository is licensed under an Apache 2 License. It is protected by a Developer Certificate of Origin on every commit. This means that any contributions you make must be licensed in an Apache-2-compatible way, and must be free from patent encumbrances or additional terms and conditions. By raising a PR, you certify that this is the case for your contribution.

Signing off commits (DCO)

If you are here because you forgot to sign off your commits, fear not. Check out how to sign off previous commits

We use developer certificate of origin (DCO) in all Hyperledger repositories, so to get your pull requests accepted, you must certify your commits by signing off on each commit.

Signing off your current commit

  • $ git commit -s -m "your commit message"
  • To see if your commits have been signed off, run $ git log. Any commits including a line with Signed-off-by: Example Author <author.email@example.com> are signed off.
  • If you need to re-sign the most current commit, use $ git commit --amend --no-edit -s.

The -s flag signs off the commit message with your name and email.

How to Sign Off Previous Commits

  1. Use $ git log to see which commits need to be signed off. Any commits missing a line with Signed-off-by: Example Author <author.email@example.com> need to be re-signed.

  2. Go into interactive rebase mode using $ git rebase -i HEAD~X where X is the number of commits up to the most current commit you would like to see.

  3. You will see a list of the commits in a text file. On the line after each commit you need to sign off, add exec git commit --amend --no-edit -s with the lowercase -s adding a text signature in the commit body. Example that signs both commits:

    pick 12345 commit message
exec git commit --amend --no-edit -s
pick 67890 commit message
exec git commit --amend --no-edit -s

  4. If you need to re-sign a bunch of previous commits at once, find the earliest commit missing the sign off line using $ git log and use that the HASH of the commit before it in this command:

     $ git rebase --exec 'git commit --amend --no-edit -n -s' -i HASH.

    This will sign off every commit from most recent to right before the HASH.

  5. You will probably need to do a force push ($ git push -f) if you had previously pushed unsigned commits to remote.