Contributing.md

There are a number of Grunt projects.

• grunt - the main Grunt project
• grunt-init - the standalone grunt-init project scaffolding tool
• gruntjs.com - the gruntjs.com website
• grunt-contrib collection - a collection of all Grunt "contrib" plugins

In addition, each individual grunt-contrib plugin is a separate repository listed on the gruntjs org homepage.

Want to contribute?

If you want to contribute, but don't know where to get started, this is for you. Issues that are linked below were marked as needs PR, this means they need a pull request to be fixed. Choose any of these issues and make sure to comment if you are working on them.

• grunt-init - Contribution guidelines should go into contributing.md
• grunt-contrib-jade - Add support for basedir option
• grunt-init-gruntfile - Doesn't generate a package.json
• grunt-contrib-coffee - Support the process option
• grunt - --gruntfile parameter broken with parent directories
• grunt-contrib-compress - Add bzip2 support
• grunt-contrib-jasmine - Enhance logging
• grunt-contrib-less Sourcemaps with multiple src files

Non-code contributions

If you don't feel like writing code you can still contribute to the project!

• You may submit updates and improvements to the documentation.
• Submit articles and guides which are also part of the documentation.
• Help Grunt user by answering questions on StackOverflow, IRC and GitHub.

Filing issues

If something isn't working like you think it should, please read the documentation, especially the [[Getting Started]] guide. If you'd like to chat with someone, [[pop into IRC|contributing#discussing-grunt]] discussing-grunt and ask your question there.

If you have a question not covered in the documentation or want to report a bug, the best way to ensure it gets addressed is to file it in the appropriate issues tracker.

• If there's an issue with grunt, grunt-init, a grunt-lib-??? module, or a specific grunt-contrib-??? plugin
  • Please file an issue on that project's issues tracker.
• If you'd like to contribute a new plugin
  • Please file an issue on the grunt-contrib collection issues tracker. We don't accept all plugins, but we'll certainly consider yours.
• If there's an issue with the website
  • Please file an issue on the gruntjs.com website issues tracker.
• If there's an issue that isn't specific to any of the above
  • Please file an issue on the grunt issues tracker and let us know why you're filing it there.

Simplify the issue

Try to reduce your code to the bare minimum required to reproduce the issue. This makes it much easier (and much faster) to isolate and fix the issue.

Explain the issue

If we can't reproduce the issue, we can't fix it. Please list the exact steps required to reproduce the issue. Include versions of your OS, Node.js, grunt, etc. Include relevant logs or sample code.

Discussing grunt

Join the freenode IRC #grunt channel. We've got a bot and everything.

No private messages, please.

Modifying grunt

First, ensure that you have the latest Node.js and npm installed.

1. Ensure grunt-cli is installed (see the [[Getting started]] guide for more information)
2. Fork and clone the repo.
3. Check out the master branch (most grunt/grunt-contrib development happens there).
4. Run npm install to install all Grunt dependencies.
5. Run npm uninstall grunt this will remove the extra Grunt in your node_modules, see npm issue 3958
6. Run grunt to Grunt grunt.

Assuming that you don't see any red, you're ready to go. Just be sure to run grunt after making any changes, to ensure that nothing has broken.

Submitting pull requests

1. Create a new branch, please don't work in master directly.
2. Add failing tests for the change you want to make. Run grunt to see the tests fail.
3. Fix stuff.
4. Run grunt to see if the tests pass. Repeat steps 2-4 until done.
5. Update the documentation to reflect any changes.
6. Push to your fork and submit a pull request.

Syntax

• Two space indents. Don't use tabs anywhere. Use \t if you need a tab character in a string.
• No trailing whitespace, except in markdown files where a linebreak must be forced.
• Don't go overboard with the whitespace.
• No more than one assignment per var statement.
• Delimit strings with single-quotes ', not double-quotes ".
• Prefer if and else to "clever" uses of ? : conditional or ||, && logical operators.
• Comments are great. Just put them before the line of code, not at the end of the line.
• When in doubt, follow the conventions you see used in the source already.

READMEs

All of the grunt-contrib-* plugins use grunt-contrib-internal to construct the README.md and CONTRIBUTING.md files. The source files are located in the corresponding docs/ folder. The change logs in the READMEs are generated from the CHANGELOG file.

When submitting changes to the README files please just edit the source files rather than the README directly.