Thanks for taking the time to contribute! ❤️
Optimism's documentation is open-source, hosted on GitHub in the ethereum-optimism/docs
repository which renders on the corresponding official website hosted at docs.optimism.io. This guide will give you an overview of the contribution workflow from opening an issue, creating a PR, reviewing, and merging the PR. Please note that contributions, pull requests, and issues should be written in English at this time. We will be running a dedicated project in the future to add language support to the technical docs, so please reach out via our developer support channel if you are interested in helping with that project.
The Optimism Documentation team reviews pull requests and either merges, requests changes, or comments and closes the pull request. You can open a documentation pull request by:
- forking the
docs
repository and working locally, - or, for smaller updates, clicking the
Edit this page
link on the right side of any documentation page to directly edit in GitHub.
Contributing to the Optimism documentation implies 2 steps:
-
Learn how to use Nextra, the tool used to write and generate Optimism's documentation.
-
Submit a pull request for review.
Optimism's documentation is built with the React and Markdown-based Nextra framework. We are using the docs theme (as opposed to the blog theme), which has specialized features.
To start contributing to Optimism's documentation using Nextra, you need to understand the files and branches architecture and use the proper syntax to format content. Additionally, if you want to work locally from a repository fork, you should set up the Nextra project on your machine.
Optimism's documentation includes two major sections with each section living in a different folder.
Section name | Target content | Folder |
---|---|---|
Pages | Where all the pages of the technical docs live | /docs/pages/ |
Public | Where all the images, icons, and illustrations for the tech docs live | /docs/public/ |
Warning
The public
folder also stores the robots.txt
and sitemap.xml
files used for SEO. Please do not modify these pages.
The Optimism Documentation team will modify these pages, when necessary, after your PR is merged.
Nextra is MDX-based, meaning the content you write is Markdown that accepts React components.
The Optimism Documentation team has created a complete style guide for you to make the best out of the various options available:
Optimism Documentation Style Guide
To set up the Nextra project on your machine, perform the following steps from a terminal instance:
- Install pnpm install pnpm.
- First, run
pnpm i
to install the dependencies. - Then, run
pnpm dev
to start the development server and - Visit localhost:3000 in your browser to view the website.
You can now start changing content and see the website updated live each time you save a new file. 🤓
Important prerequisite
To prevent building issues upstream, you should build the content locally before submitting a pull request: stop or delete the terminal server if it's running, then run pnpm dev
.
- Use the information reported by the terminal to fix any issues (e.g., broken links).
- Run
pnpm fix
to automatically fix most linting issues (e.g., formatting and style guide). - Run
pnpm spellcheck:lint
to test your content against the dictionary. Add new words to the dictionary by appending them towords.txt
. - Run
pnpm spellcheck:fix
to add new words to the dictionary automatically. - Try another
pnpm dev
and repeat until no issues are reported ("client" and "server compiled successfully").
Your pull request should usually target the main
branch, though the Optimism Documentation team might sometimes ask you to target another branch.
To submit your contribution for review:
- Create a new pull request on GitHub.
- Select a PR type from the list or choose Open a blank issue at the bottom of the page.
- Complete the form as requested. For blank PR issues, please provide a clear title and accurate description/context.
- Click the "Create pull request"button to create the pull request effectively.
If your pull request is not ready for review yet, choose the "Create draft pull request"in the dropdown. The Optimism documentation team will review your pull request only when you mark it as "Ready for review".
- Add GitHub labels for the pull request. Add
documentation
to all pull requests in this repo AND additional labels based on the type of update or request.tutorial
,faq
, ortroubleshooting
for specific content types,oracle
,rpc-provider
,faucet
, orattestation
for ecosystem offerings,user feedback
for general feedback about one or more pages, orbug
if something isn't working as expected.
If label for type of update is not set, the Optimism Documentation team will set or update this for you
Warning
Approved pull requests are usually merged immediately into the main
branch, automatically triggering a deployment on docs.optimism.io. Please add the flag:merge-pending-release
label if the pull request content should only be released publicly in sync with a product release.
That's it! 🥳 Once the pull request is reviewed and approved, the Optimism Documentation team will merge it, and the content will be live on docs.optimism.io a few minutes later. 🚀
The pull request review process and timeline are based on the availability of the Optimism Documentation team to handle community contributions. The workflow is as follows:
-
The pull request is assigned to a member of the Documentation team.
-
At least 1 member of the Documentation team will review the pull request for:
- accuracy,
- quality,
- alignment with the documentation scope.
-
Reviewers will either approve, ask for changes, or reject the pull request.
-
Accepted pull requests will be merged and automatically deployed on docs.optimism.io a few minutes later.
All types of contributions are encouraged and valued. And if you like the project, but just don't have time to contribute, that's fine too. There are other easy ways to support the project and show your appreciation, which we would also be very happy about:
- Star the project
- Tweet about it
- Refer this project in your project's readme
- Mention the project at local meetups and tell your friends/colleagues
The community looks forward to your contributions. 🎉