CONTRIBUTING.md

Contributing to Bootstrap

Looking to contribute something to Bootstrap? Here's how you can help.

Please take a moment to review this document in order to make the contribution process easy and effective for everyone involved.

Following these guidelines helps to communicate that you respect the time of the developers managing and developing this open source project. In return, they should reciprocate that respect in addressing your issue or assessing patches and features.

Using the issue tracker

The issue tracker is the preferred channel for bug reports, features requests and submitting pull requests, but please respect the following restrictions:

• Please do not use the issue tracker for personal support requests. Stack Overflow (twitter-bootstrap-3 tag) or IRC are better places to get help.

• Please do not derail or troll issues. Keep the discussion on topic and respect the opinions of others.

• Please do not open issues or pull requests regarding the code in Normalize (open them in their respective repositories).

Bug reports

A bug is a demonstrable problem that is caused by the code in the repository. Good bug reports are extremely helpful, so thanks!

Guidelines for bug reports:

0. Validate and lint your code — validate your HTML and lint your HTML to ensure your problem isn't caused by a simple error in your own code.

1. Use the GitHub issue search — check if the issue has already been reported.

2. Check if the issue has been fixed — try to reproduce it using the latest master or development branch in the repository.

3. Isolate the problem — ideally create a reduced test case and a live example. This JS Bin is a helpful template.

A good bug report shouldn't leave others needing to chase you up for more information. Please try to be as detailed as possible in your report. What is your environment? What steps will reproduce the issue? What browser(s) and OS experience the problem? Do other browsers show the bug differently? What would you expect to be the outcome? All these details will help people to fix any potential bugs.

Example:

Short and descriptive example bug report title

A summary of the issue and the browser/OS environment in which it occurs. If suitable, include the steps required to reproduce the bug.

1. This is the first step
2. This is the second step
3. Further steps, etc.

<url> - a link to the reduced test case

Any other information you want to share that is relevant to the issue being reported. This might include the lines of code that you have identified as causing the bug, and potential solutions (and your opinions on their merits).

Reporting upstream browser bugs

Sometimes bugs reported to us are actually caused by bugs in the browser(s) themselves, not bugs in Bootstrap per se. When feasible, we aim to report such upstream bugs to the relevant browser vendor(s), and then list them on our Wall of Browser Bugs.

Vendor(s)	Browser(s)	Rendering engine	Bug reporting website(s)	Notes
Mozilla	Firefox	Gecko	https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi	"Core" is normally the right product option to choose.
Apple	Safari	WebKit	https://bugs.webkit.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=WebKit https://bugreport.apple.com	In Apple's bug reporter, choose "Safari" as the product.
Google, Opera	Chrome, Chromium, Opera v15+	Blink	https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/list	Click the "New issue" button.
Microsoft	Internet Explorer	Trident	https://connect.microsoft.com/IE/feedback/LoadSubmitFeedbackForm

Issues bots

@twbs-lmvtfy is a Bootstrap bot that hangs out in our GitHub issue tracker and automatically checks for HTML validation errors in live examples (e.g. jsFiddles, JS Bins, Bootplys, Plunks, CodePens, etc.) posted in issue comments. If it finds any errors, it will post a follow-up comment on the issue and point out the errors. If this happens with an example you've posted, please fix the errors and post an updated live example. If you opened a bug report, please check whether the bug still occurs with your revised, valid live example. If the bug no longer occurs, it was probably due to your invalid HTML rather than something in Bootstrap and we'd appreciate it if you could close out the GitHub issue.

Feature requests

Feature requests are welcome. But take a moment to find out whether your idea fits with the scope and aims of the project. It's up to you to make a strong case to convince the project's developers of the merits of this feature. Please provide as much detail and context as possible.

Pull requests

Good pull requests—patches, improvements, new features—are a fantastic help. They should remain focused in scope and avoid containing unrelated commits.

Please ask first before embarking on any significant pull request (e.g. implementing features, refactoring code, porting to a different language), otherwise you risk spending a lot of time working on something that the project's developers might not want to merge into the project.

Please adhere to the coding guidelines used throughout the project (indentation, accurate comments, etc.) and any other requirements (such as test coverage).

Do not edit bootstrap.css, bootstrap-theme.css, or bootstrap.js directly! Those files are automatically generated. You should edit the source files in /bootstrap/less/ and/or /bootstrap/js/ instead.

Similarly, when contributing to Bootstrap's documentation, you should edit the documentation source files in the /bootstrap/docs/ directory of the master branch. Do not edit the gh-pages branch. That branch is generated from the documentation source files and is managed separately by the Bootstrap Core Team.

Adhering to the following process is the best way to get your work included in the project:

1. Fork the project, clone your fork, and configure the remotes:

   # Clone your fork of the repo into the current directory
   git clone https://github.com/<your-username>/bootstrap.git
   # Navigate to the newly cloned directory
   cd bootstrap
   # Assign the original repo to a remote called "upstream"
   git remote add upstream https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap.git

2. If you cloned a while ago, get the latest changes from upstream:

   git checkout master
   git pull upstream master

3. Create a new topic branch (off the main project development branch) to contain your feature, change, or fix:

   git checkout -b <topic-branch-name>

4. Commit your changes in logical chunks. Please adhere to these git commit message guidelines or your code is unlikely be merged into the main project. Use Git's interactive rebase feature to tidy up your commits before making them public.

5. Locally merge (or rebase) the upstream development branch into your topic branch:

   git pull [--rebase] upstream master

6. Push your topic branch up to your fork:

   git push origin <topic-branch-name>

7. Open a Pull Request with a clear title and description against the master branch.

IMPORTANT: By submitting a patch, you agree to allow the project owners to license your work under the terms of the MIT License.

Pull request checker bot: Rorschach

@twbs-rorschach is a Bootstrap bot that hangs out in our GitHub issue tracker and automatically checks all pull requests for a few simple common mistakes. It's possible that Rorschach might leave a comment on your pull request and then close it. If that happens, simply fix the problem(s) mentioned in the comment (there should be link(s) in the comment explaining the problem(s) in detail) and then either:

• Push the revised version to your pull request's branch and post a comment on the pull request saying that you've fixed the problem(s). One of the Bootstrap Core Team members will then come along and reopen your pull request.
• Or you can just open a new pull request for your revised version.

Code guidelines

HTML

Adhere to the Code Guide.

• Use tags and elements appropriate for an HTML5 doctype (e.g., self-closing tags).
• Use CDNs and HTTPS for third-party JS when possible. We don't use protocol-relative URLs in this case because they break when viewing the page locally via file://.
• Use WAI-ARIA attributes in documentation examples to promote accessibility.

CSS

Adhere to the Code Guide.

• When feasible, default color palettes should comply with WCAG color contrast guidelines.
• Except in rare cases, don't remove default :focus styles (via e.g. outline: none;) without providing alternative styles. See this A11Y Project post for more details.

JS

• No semicolons (in client-side JS)
• 2 spaces (no tabs)
• strict mode
• "Attractive"

Checking coding style

Run grunt test before committing to ensure your changes follow our coding standards.

License

By contributing your code, you agree to license your contribution under the MIT license.

Prior to v3.1.0, Bootstrap was released under the Apache License v2.0.