Contributing

This is a FOSS project — anyone interested in using, developing, or contributing is welcome. The project follows a KISS (Keep It Simple and Stupid) philosophy.

Reporting Issues

• Open a ticket on the repository GitHub Issues page
• Clearly describe the problem, including steps to reproduce for bugs
• Note the earliest version you know has the issue

Pull Requests

1. Fork the repository on GitHub
2. Create a topic branch from master:

   git checkout -b fix/master/my_contribution master

3. Test your changes with fobis build --mode tests-gnu-debug && bash scripts/run_tests.sh; after a change of the viewer (src/js/viewer.js), regenerate its Fortran copy (fobis rule --ex embed-js) and run its tests, npm ci --prefix src/js && npm test --prefix src/js (node only: tick rules, then key entries, linked zoom and follow mode in a parsed page)
4. Check for unnecessary whitespace: git diff --check
5. Submit a pull request with a clear commit message

Fortran Coding Style

• Clarity over brevity: real :: gas_ideal_air is better than real :: gia
• Single-character variable names only for loop counters
• Name all constants
• implicit none in every module and program
• Declare intent for all procedure arguments, ordered: pass arg → inout → in → out → optional
• Indent with two spaces (not tabs)
• No trailing whitespace; blank lines must contain no spaces
• Use >, <, == instead of .gt., .lt., .eq.
• Avoid Windows-style CRLF line endings

Recommended git whitespace settings

[color]
  ui = true
[color "diff"]
  whitespace = red reverse
[core]
  whitespace = fix,-indent-with-non-tab,trailing-space,cr-at-eol

Documentation examples

Every snippet, output and plot of the tutorial and the cookbook comes from the sources in docs/examples/src: Fortran programs and gnuplot scripts with marker comments (!run ID COMMAND or #run ID COMMAND for a run shown in the pages, !region NAME ... !endregion NAME or # region NAME ... # endregion NAME for a part included on its own).

bash scripts/docs_examples.sh     # or: fobis rule --ex docs-examples

builds the library and the command line, runs every example, and regenerates docs/examples/snippets, docs/examples/output and the plots in docs/public/examples, which the pages embed live with <Plot name="..."/>. Commit the regenerated files with the change: the CI runs the script and fails if any of them differs.

Commit style

Use Conventional Commits so that CHANGELOG.md is generated automatically from the git log:

Prefix	Purpose	Changelog section
feat:	New feature or capability	New features
fix:	Bug fix	Bug fixes
perf:	Performance improvement	Performance
refactor:	Code restructuring	Refactoring
docs:	Documentation only	Documentation
test:	Tests	Testing
build:	Build system	Build system
ci:	CI/CD pipeline	CI/CD
chore:	Maintenance	Miscellaneous

Append ! for breaking changes (feat!:, fix!:). Reference issues with #123 — they are auto-linked.

feat: add R32P kind parameter
fix: correct byte_size for character arrays (#42)
feat!: rename check_endian to init_endian

---

Creating a release

Releases are fully automated via scripts/release.sh and GitHub Actions. The only steps needed are:

# Install git-cliff once
npx git-cliff@latest

# Then, to release:
scripts/release.sh patch   # v1.2.3 → v1.2.4
scripts/release.sh minor   # v1.2.3 → v1.3.0
scripts/release.sh major   # v1.2.3 → v2.0.0
scripts/release.sh v2.1.0  # explicit version

release.sh will ask for confirmation, then:

1. Regenerate CHANGELOG.md from the git log via git-cliff
2. Update VERSION
3. Commit with chore(release): vX.Y.Z
4. Create an annotated git tag
5. Push commit + tag

Pushing the tag triggers the GitHub Actions release workflow, which automatically:

• Runs the full test suite and uploads coverage
• Builds this documentation site and deploys it to GitHub Pages
• Packages a versioned tarball
• Publishes a GitHub release with the changelog section as release notes