Contributing to RAJA

RAJA is a collaborative open source software project and we encourage contributions from anyone who wants to add features or improve its capabilities. This section describes the following:

  • GitHub project access
  • How to develop a RAJA pull request (PR) contribution.
  • Requirements that must be met for a PR to be merged.

We assume contributors are familiar with Git, which we use for source code version control, and GitHub, which is where our project is hosted.

Important

  • Before a PR can be merged into RAJA, all test checks must pass and the PR must be approved by at least one member of the core RAJA team.
  • Each RAJA contribution (feature, bugfix, etc.) must include adequate tests, documentation, and code examples. The adequacy of PR content, in this respect, is determined by PR reviewers applying their professional judgment considering the perspective of RAJA users and developers.

GitHub Project Access

RAJA maintains three levels of project access on it GitHub project:

  • Core team members. Individuals on the core RAJA team are frequent RAJA contributors and participate regularly in project meetings, discussions, and other project activities. They are members of the LLNL GitHub organization and the RAJA-core GitHub team. Their project privileges include the ability to create branches in the repository, push code changes to the RAJA repo, make PRs, and merge them when they are approved and all checks have passed.
  • Regular contributors. Individuals, who are not on the core RAJA team, but are members of the LLNL GitHub organization and are involved in some aspects of RAJA development are considered regular contributors. They are members of the RAJA-contrib GitHub team. Their project privileges include the ability to create branches in the repository, push code changes to the RAJA repo, and make PRs. However, they may not merge PRs and must coordinate with the core team to have their work included in the develop branch. This is mainly due to the way GitHub structures its project access levels.
  • Everyone else. Anyone with a GitHub account is welcome to contribute to RAJA. Individuals outside of the two groups described above can make PRs in the RAJA project, but must do so from a branch on a fork of the RAJA repo. This is described below.

Pull Request Process

The following figure shows the basic elements of the RAJA PR contribution workflow. Some details vary depending on RAJA GitHub project access level of the contributor. The process involves four main steps:

  1. A RAJA contributor makes a PR on the RAJA GitHub project to merge a branch on which she has developed a contribution into another RAJA branch, typically, the develop branch.
  2. When a PR is created, GitHub triggers Azure CI testing checks and possibly Gitlab CI checks if the branch is part of the RAJA GItHub repo. Running and pass/fail status is reported back to GitHub where it can be viewed and monitored.
  3. Meanwhile, RAJA team members and other contributors review the PR, suggesting changes and/or approving when they think it is ready to merge.
  4. When all checks pass and the PR is approved, the PR may be merged.
../../_images/PR-Workflow.png

The four main steps in the RAJA pull request (PR) process, which are common practices for many software projects.

This PR process should be familiar to nearly everyone who contributes to s software project. If you would like more information about pull requests, GitHub has a good PR guide on PR basics.

Important

When you create a RAJA PR, you should enter a description of its contents in the PR template form the team maintains for this purpose. A good PR summary includes a descriptive title of the the bug you fixed or the feature you have added. Other relevant details that will assist others in reviewing your contribution should also be included.

Forking RAJA

As noted earlier, if you are not a member of the core RAJA development team, or a recognized RAJA contributor, then you do not have permission to create a branch in the RAJA GitHub repository. This choice is due to policies enforced by the LLNL organization on GitHub (in which the RAJA project resides) and the Livermore Computing (LC) organization (in which we run our Gitlab CI testing). Fortunately, you may still contribute to RAJA by forking the RAJA repo. Forking creates a copy of the RAJA repository that you own. You can make changes on your local copy and push them your fork on GitHub. When you are ready to have your RAJA contribution reviewed ad added to the RAJA project, you may create a pull request in the RAJA project.

Note

A contributor who is not a member of the core RAJA development team, or a recognized RAJA contributor, cannot create a branch in the RAJA GitHub repo. However, anyone can create a fork of the RAJA project and create a pull request based on the fork in the RAJA project.

Developing A RAJA Contribution

New features, bugfixes, and other changes are developed on a feature branch. Each such branch should be based on the most current RAJA develop branch. For more information on the branch development model used in RAJA, please see RAJA Branch Development. When you want to make a contribution, first ensure you have a local, up-to-date copy of the develop branch by running the following commands:

$ git checkout develop
$ git pull origin develop
$ git submodule update --init --recursive

Then, in your local copy, you will be on the current version of develop branch with all RAJA submodules synchronized with that.

Feature and Bugfix Contributions

Assuming you are on an up-to-date develop branch in your local copy of RAJA, the first step toward developing a RAJA contribution is to create a new branch on which to do your development and push it to the remote origin of your local copy. For example:

$ git checkout -b <username>/feature/<name-of-feature>
$ git push <remote> <branch-name>

where <username>/feature/<name-of-feature> is the name of your feature branch. Or,

$ git checkout -b <username>/bugfix/<issue-fixed>
$ git push <remote> <branch-name>

where <username>/bugfix/<issue-fixed> is the name of your bugfix branch.

Proceed to modify your branch by committing changes with reasonably-sized work portions (i.e., atomic commits), and add tests that will exercise your new code, and examples and documentation, as needed. If you are creating new functionality, please add documentation to the appropriate section of the RAJA Documentation. The source files for the RAJA documentation are maintained in the RAJA/docs directory of the source repository. Consider adding example code(s) that illustrate usage of the new features you develop to help users and other developers understand your addition. These should be placed in the RAJA/examples directory and referenced in the RAJA User Guide as appropriate.

After your work is complete, you’ve tested it, and developed appropriate documentation, you can push your local branch to GitHub and create a PR in the RAJA project to merge your work into the RAJA develop branch. It will be reviewed by members of the RAJA team, who will provide comments, suggestions, etc.

As we stated earlier, not all required Continuous Integration (CI) Testing checks can be run on a PR made from a branch in a fork of RAJA. When the RAJA team has agreed to accept your work, it will be pulled into the RAJA GitHub repo (see Accepting A Pull Request From A Forked Repository). Then, it will run through all required testing and receive final reviews and approvals. When it is approved and all CI test checks pass, your contribution will be merged into the RAJA repository, most likely the develop branch.

Important

When creating a branch that you intend to be merged into the RAJA repo, please give it a succinct name that clearly describes the contribution. For example, username/feature/<name-of-feature> for a new feature, username/bugfix/<issue-fixed> for a bugfix, etc.

Accepting A Pull Request From A Forked Repository

Due to LLNL security policies, some RAJA pull requests will not be able to be run through all RAJA CI tools. The Livermore Computing (LC) Center Gitlab systems restrict which GitHub PRs may automatically run through its CI test pipelines. For example, a PR made from branch on a forked repository will not trigger Gitlab CI checks. Gitlab CI on LC platforms will be run only on PRs that are made from branches in the GitHub RAJA repository. See Continuous Integration (CI) Testing for more information about RAJA PR testing.

Note

The following process for accepting PR contributions from a fork of the RAJA repo must be executed by a member of the RAJA team:

To facilitate testing contributions in PRs from forked repositories, we maintain a script to pull a PR branch from a forked repo into the RAJA repo. First, identify the number of the PR, which appears at the top of your PR. Then, run a script from the top-level RAJA directory:

$ ./scripts/make_local_branch_from_fork_pr -b <PR #>

If successful, this will create a branch in your local copy of the RAJA repo labeled pr-from-fork/<PR #> and you will be on that local branch in your checkout space. To verify this, you can run the following command after you run the script:

$ git branch

You will see the new branch in the listing of branches and the branch you are on will be starred.

You can push the new branch to the RAJA repo on GitHub:

$ git push origin <branch-name>

and make a PR for the new branch. It is good practice to reference the original PR in the description of the new PR to track the original PR discussion and reviews.

All CI checks will be triggered to run on the new PR made in the RAJA repo. When everything passes and the PR is approved, it may be merged. When it is merged, the original PR from the forked repo will be closed and marked as merged unless it is referenced elsewhere, such as in a GitHub issue. If this is the case, then the original PR (from the forked repo) must be closed manually.