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Making a Pull Request

You can contribute to VerifIA by opening a pull request against the main repository. Your changes—whether bug fixes, documentation improvements, or new features—will be reviewed by the maintainers and merged once approved.

Before you begin

  • If you’ve found a bug, please open an issue first.
  • For documentation updates, open a docs issue.
  • For new features or behavior changes, open a feature request.
  • Discuss your plan on the issue tracker so we can advise on scope and approach.

1. Learn the Workflow

Before creating a pull request, get familiar with GitHub’s PR concepts:

  1. Fork a repository
  2. Clone your fork
  3. Create a branch
  4. Push to your branch
  5. Open a pull request

2. Pull Request Process

2.1 Prepare your changes

sequenceDiagram
  autonumber
  participant VerifIA
  participant Fork
  participant Local
  participant PR

  VerifIA ->> Fork: Fork `verifia/verifia`
  Fork ->> Local: Clone fork
  Local ->> Local: git switch -c feature/your-topic
  loop develop
    Local ->> Local: make edits & commit
    Local ->> Fork: git push
    Fork ->> PR: open or update draft PR
    PR ->> PR: review & iterate
  end
  1. Fork the VerifIA repo verifia/verifia.
  2. Clone your fork locally:

git clone git@github.com:<your_username>/verifia.git
cd verifia
3. Branch for your work:

git switch -c feature/describe-your-change
4. Develop with small, focused commits.

  1. Push often to your fork:

git push -u origin feature/describe-your-change
6. Open a draft PR as soon as you have something to show, while referencing an issue.

2.2 Keep in sync

If upstream main has new commits, merge them into your branch:

git remote add upstream https://github.com/verifia/verifia.git
git fetch upstream
git merge upstream/main
git push

3. Finalizing Your Pull Request

sequenceDiagram
  autonumber
  participant PR
  participant VerifIA
  participant Local

  PR ->> PR: mark as ready for review
  loop review
    PR ->> Local: reviewer comments
    Local ->> Local: address feedback & commit
    Local ->> Fork: git push
  end
  VerifIA ->> PR: maintainer merges (squash)
  Local ->> Local: delete branch
  1. Change from draft to ready for review.
  2. Receive reviews from a maintainer.
  3. Address feedback promptly with commits to your branch.
  4. Once approved, a maintainer will merge (often squashing commits).

4. After Merge

  1. Delete your topic branch both locally and on GitHub:

git switch main
git pull upstream main
git branch -d feature/describe-your-change
git push origin --delete feature/describe-your-change
2. You’re ready for your next contribution!

Dos and Don’ts

  • Do explain why you’re making changes.
  • Do reference related issues and discussions.
  • Do write clear, descriptive commit messages.
  • Don’t submit huge, unreviewable diffs—keep PRs small.
  • Don’t forget to merge upstream changes before finalizing.

Thank you for helping build the VerifIA community! 🎉