Developer Document Catalog (3.3.22)

# Contributing to Breezy

## Talk to us

If you want to fix or improve something in Breezy, we want to help you. You can ask at any time for help, on the list, on irc, or through a pull request on GitHub.

- Bazaar mailing list

- Breezy mailing list

- IRC in channel `#breezy` on `irc.oftc.net`

## Starting

Before starting on a change it’s a good idea to either file a bug, find a relevant existing bug, or send a proposal to the list. If there is a bug you should set it to “In Progress” and if you wish assign it to yourself.

You might like to start with a bug tagged easy.

If you are wondering if your understanding of the bug is correct, or if the approach you have in mind is likely to work, feel to ask about it on the bug, in `#breezy` or on the mailing list.

## Making a branch

First, get a local copy of Breezy:

    $ cd $HOME
    $ bzr branch https://github.com/breezy-team/breezy.git brz
    $ cd brz

Now make your own branch; we recommend you include the bug number and also a brief description:

    $ brz switch -b brz.dev 123456-status-speed

and go ahead and commit in there. Normally you should fix only one bug or closely-related cluster of bugs per branch, to make reviews and merges flow more smoothly.

## Publishing your changes

After you’ve locally committed your changes, the configuration above should be enough that you can push them to GitHub with a simple

    $ brz publish

## Writing tests

We value test coverage and generally all changes should have or update a test. There is a powerful test framework but it can be hard to find the right place to put your test. Don’t hesitate to ask, or to propose a merge that does not yet have tests.

Normally for command-line code you should look in `breezy.tests.blackbox` and for library code in `breezy.tests`. For functions on an interface for which there are multiple implementations, like Transport, look in `breezy.tests.per_transport`.

It’s a good idea to search the tests for something related to the thing you’re changing and you may find a test you can modify or adapt.

To run the tests:

    $ ./brz selftest

Normally the tests will skip if some library dependencies are not present. On Ubuntu, you can install them with this command (you must have source repositories enabled in Software Sources):

    $ sudo apt-get build-dep brz

To build the binary extensions:

    $ make

For more information: Testing Guide.

## Proposing a merge

Then propose a merge into Breezy; for Breezy 3.0 and later you can use the `brz propose` command. In the comment for your merge proposal please explain what you’re trying to do and why. For example:

> As discussed on the mailing list, this patch adds a What’s New document summarising the changes since 2.0.

If you make additional changes to your branch you don’t need to resubmit; they’ll automatically show up in the merge proposal.