Every open source project lives from the generous help by contributors that sacrifice their time and ``python-telegram-bot`` is no different. To make participation as pleasant as possible, this project adheres to the `Code of Conduct`_ by the Python Software Foundation.
If you already know what you'd like to work on, you can skip this section.
If you have an idea for something to do, first check if it's already been filed on the `issue tracker`_. If so, add a comment to the issue saying you'd like to work on it, and we'll help you get started! Otherwise, please file a new issue and assign yourself to it.
Another great way to start contributing is by writing tests. Tests are really important because they help prevent developers from accidentally breaking existing code, allowing them to build cool things faster. If you're interested in helping out, let the development team know by posting to the `Telegram group`_, and we'll help you get started.
That being said, we want to mention that we are very hesitant about adding new requirements to our projects. If you intend to do this, please state this in an issue and get a verification from one of the maintainers.
The central development branch is ``master``, which should be clean and ready for release at any time. In general, all changes should be done as feature branches based off of ``master``.
1.**Choose a descriptive branch name.** It should be lowercase, hyphen-separated, and a noun describing the change (so, ``fuzzy-rules``, but not ``implement-fuzzy-rules``). Also, it shouldn't start with ``hotfix`` or ``release``.
2.**Create a new branch with this name, starting from**``master``. In other words, run:
3.**Make a commit to your feature branch**. Each commit should be self-contained and have a descriptive commit message that helps other developers understand why the changes were made.
- Provide static typing with signature annotations. The documentation of `MyPy`_ will be a good start, the cheat sheet is `here`_. We also have some custom type aliases in ``telegram._utils.types``.
- In addition, PTB uses some formatting/styling and linting tools in the pre-commit setup. Some of those tools also have command line tools that can help to run these tools outside of the pre-commit step. If you'd like to leverage that, please have a look at the `pre-commit config file`_ for an overview of which tools (and which versions of them) are used. For example, we use `Black`_ for code formatting. Plugins for Black exist for some `popular editors`_. You can use those instead of manually formatting everything.
4.**When your feature is ready to merge, create a pull request.**
- Go to your fork on GitHub, select your branch from the dropdown menu, and click "New pull request".
- Add a descriptive comment explaining the purpose of the branch (e.g. "Add the new API feature to create inline bot queries."). This will tell the reviewer what the purpose of the branch is.
- Click "Create pull request". An admin will assign a reviewer to your commit.
5.**Address review comments until all reviewers give LGTM ('looks good to me').**
- Make a new commit addressing the comments you agree with, and push it to the same branch. Ideally, the commit message would explain what the commit does (e.g. "Fix lint error"), but if there are lots of disparate review comments, it's fine to refer to the original commit message and add something like "(address review comments)".
- In order to keep the commit history intact, please avoid squashing or amending history and then force-pushing to the PR. Reviewers often want to look at individual commits.
- In addition, please reply to each comment. Each reply should be either "Done" or a response explaining why the corresponding suggestion wasn't implemented. All comments must be resolved before LGTM can be given.
- Resolve any merge conflicts that arise. To resolve conflicts between 'your-branch-name' (in your fork) and 'master' (in the ``python-telegram-bot`` repository), run:
- Added ``.. versionadded:: NEXT.VERSION``, ``.. versionchanged:: NEXT.VERSION``, ``.. deprecated:: NEXT.VERSION`` or ``.. versionremoved:: NEXT.VERSION`` to the docstrings for user facing changes (for methods/class descriptions, arguments and attributes)
- Documented code changes according to the `CSI standard <https://standards.mousepawmedia.com/en/stable/csi.html>`__
- Added myself alphabetically to ``AUTHORS.rst`` (optional)
- Added new classes & modules to the docs and all suitable ``__all__`` s
- Checked the `Stability Policy <https://docs.python-telegram-bot.org/stability_policy.html>`_ in case of deprecations or changes to documented behavior
**If the PR contains API changes (otherwise, you can ignore this passage)**
- Checked the Bot API specific sections of the `Stability Policy <https://docs.python-telegram-bot.org/stability_policy.html>`_
- Created a PR to remove functionality deprecated in the previous Bot API release (`see here <https://docs.python-telegram-bot.org/en/stable/stability_policy.html#case-2>`_)
- Added logic for arbitrary callback data in :class:`telegram.ext.ExtBot` for new methods that either accept a ``reply_markup`` in some form or have a return type that is/contains :class:`~telegram.Message`
The documentation of this project is separated in two sections: User facing and dev facing.
User facing docs are hosted at `RTD`_. They are the main way the users of our library are supposed to get information about the objects. They don't care about the internals, they just want to know
what they have to pass to make it work, what it actually does. You can/should provide examples for non obvious cases (like the Filter module), and notes/warnings.
Dev facing, on the other side, is for the devs/maintainers of this project. These
doc strings don't have a separate documentation site they generate, instead, they document the actual code.
We use `sphinx`_ to generate static HTML docs. To build them, first make sure you're running Python 3.9 or above and have the required dependencies installed as explained above.
Then, run the following from the PTB root directory:
- Add ``.. versionadded:: NEXT.VERSION``, ``.. versionchanged:: NEXT.VERSION`` or ``.. deprecated:: NEXT.VERSION`` to the associated documentation of your changes, depending on what kind of change you made. This only applies if the change you made is visible to an end user. The directives should be added to class/method descriptions if their general behaviour changed and to the description of all arguments & attributes that changed.
We adhere to the `CSI`_ standard. This documentation is not fully implemented in the project, yet, but new code changes should comply with the `CSI` standard.
The idea behind this is to make it very easy for you/a random maintainer or even a totally foreign person to drop anywhere into the code and more or less immediately understand what a particular line does. This will make it easier
for new to make relevant changes if said lines don't do what they are supposed to.