How to contribute (for Non-Committers)

Thanks for your interest in growing CouchDB! This page will explain the process of submitting code to fix issues or add features.

In this document:

• Prerequisites

• Step 1: See if your bug/feature exists in JIRA

• Step 2: Go forth and code!

• Step 3: Create and Upload a Patch

• Asking Questions And Getting Feedback

Prerequisites

Ensure that you've

• Installed from source: Installing from source

• Got your system running in Dev mode: Running CouchDB in Dev Mode

Step 1: See if your bug/feature exists in JIRA

• JIRA is the issue tracker that CouchDB uses to track items of work.

• Visit https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COUCHDB to see if your issue already exists.

• If it doesn't, you can open one by

  • Registering for a JIRA account here: https://issues.apache.org/jira/secure/Signup!default.jspa

  • Then opening a new issue here: https://issues.apache.org/jira/secure/CreateIssue!default.jspa

• Either way, bookmark the link because you'll need it to comment or submit patches.

Note: You're still welcome to submit patches even if an issue has been assigned to someone else. In this case, it's probably better to add a comment before getting started.

Step 2: Go forth and code!

• Take a look at the recommended coding standards here: http://couchdb.apache.org/community/standards.html

• Before starting, make sure that your local copy is up to the latest version

• For those using the command-line subversion tools, run this before starting:

  $ cd YOUR-COUCHDB-CHECKOUT-DIR
  $ svn update
   

• Don't forget to rebuild couchdb afterwards

  $ cd YOUR-COUCHDB-CHECKOUT-DIR
  $ make dev
   

Step 3: Create and Upload a Patch

• Once you've completed the feature/fix you will need to create a patch

• From the command line, call the following, giving your patch a name:

  $ cd YOUR-COUCHDB-CHECKOUT-DIR
  $ svn diff > your_patch_file_name.diff
   

• Open up the issue link you found/created in Step 1

• Click on Attach File under the Operations menu on the left

• Add your file and add a comment about the change.

And you're done!

Asking Questions And Getting Feedback

You can contact the CouchDB developers to ask questions and propose ideas by:

• Sending a mail to the Dev mailing list: http://wiki.apache.org/couchdb/Mailing_lists or,

• Chatting on IRC: #couchdb on Freenode (irc.freenode.net)

All issues created in JIRA are mailed to the Dev mailing list.