Contributing to RoboDev¶

Thank you for your interest in contributing to RoboDev! This document provides guidelines and information for contributors.

Code of Conduct¶

This project adheres to the Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct. By participating, you are expected to uphold this code.

Getting Started¶

Fork the repository
Clone your fork: git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/robodev.git
Install git hooks: ./hack/install-hooks.sh
Create a feature branch: git checkout -b feat/my-feature
Make your changes
Commit with a conventional commit message
Push and open a pull request (hooks run lint and tests automatically)

Development Prerequisites¶

Go 1.23+
Docker (for container builds)
kind (for local Kubernetes clusters)
kubectl (for cluster interaction)
helm (for chart deployment)
gofumpt (for code formatting)
golangci-lint (for linting)
buf (for protobuf linting and generation)

Install development dependencies:

./scripts/install-deps.sh

Git Hooks¶

Install the recommended git hooks after cloning:

./hack/install-hooks.sh

This installs a pre-push hook that runs golangci-lint and go test -race ./... before every push, catching lint errors and test failures locally before they reach CI.

Local Development Workflow¶

RoboDev uses kind for local development and testing. The full workflow is automated via Make targets:

# Verify all prerequisites are installed
make check-prereqs

# Full setup: build the controller binary, build the controller image,
# create the kind cluster, and deploy the local-dev profile
make local-up

# Stream controller logs
make logs

# Run end-to-end smoke tests
make e2e-test

# Fast rebuild and redeploy (reuses existing cluster)
make local-redeploy

# Tear everything down
make local-down

The local-up target creates a two-node kind cluster (control-plane + worker), builds the controller image with a dev tag, loads it into kind, and deploys the Helm chart with local-dev overrides. The local-dev profile disables image pulls and leader election, exposes the controller HTTP endpoint on localhost:30080 for /healthz, /readyz, and /metrics, and uses the noop ticketing backend so the controller starts without external credentials. Use make live-up when you want to exercise real ticketing backends and engine containers.

Code Style¶

Run gofumpt on all Go files before committing
Run golangci-lint run and fix all warnings
Use British English in comments, documentation, and error messages
Follow standard Go project layout conventions
All exported types, functions, and methods must have doc comments
Prefer table-driven tests with subtests

Commit Messages¶

We use Conventional Commits:

feat: — new feature
fix: — bug fix
docs: — documentation only
test: — adding or updating tests
refactor: — code change that neither fixes a bug nor adds a feature
chore: — maintenance tasks

Pull Requests¶

Keep PRs focused — one logical change per PR
Update documentation as needed
Add an entry to CHANGELOG.md under "Unreleased"
Ensure CI passes before requesting review

Plugin Contributions¶

If you're building a plugin, see the Writing a Plugin guide.

Licence¶

By contributing, you agree that your contributions will be licensed under the Apache License 2.0.