= Contributing to Spring Boot

Spring Boot is released under the Apache 2.0 license. If you would like to contribute something, or want to hack on the code this document should help you get started.



== Code of Conduct
This project adheres to the Contributor Covenant link:CODE_OF_CONDUCT.adoc[code of conduct].
By participating, you are expected to uphold this code. Please report unacceptable behavior to spring-code-of-conduct@pivotal.io.



== Using GitHub Issues
We use GitHub issues to track bugs and enhancements.
If you have a general usage question please ask on https://stackoverflow.com[Stack Overflow].
The Spring Boot team and the broader community monitor the https://stackoverflow.com/tags/spring-boot[`spring-boot`] tag.

If you are reporting a bug, please help to speed up problem diagnosis by providing as much information as possible.
Ideally, that would include a small sample project that reproduces the problem.



== Reporting Security Vulnerabilities
If you think you have found a security vulnerability in Spring Boot please *DO NOT* disclose it publicly until we've had a chance to fix it.
Please don't report security vulnerabilities using GitHub issues, instead head over to https://spring.io/security-policy and learn how to disclose them responsibly.



== Sign the Contributor License Agreement
Before we accept a non-trivial patch or pull request we will need you to https://cla.pivotal.io/sign/spring[sign the Contributor License Agreement].
Signing the contributor's agreement does not grant anyone commit rights to the main repository, but it does mean that we can accept your contributions, and you will get an author credit if we do.
Active contributors might be asked to join the core team, and given the ability to merge pull requests.



== Code Conventions and Housekeeping
None of these is essential for a pull request, but they will all help.  They can also be
added after the original pull request but before a merge.

* We use the https://github.com/spring-io/spring-javaformat/[Spring JavaFormat] project to apply code formatting conventions.
  If you use Eclipse and you follow the '`Importing into eclipse`' instructions below you should get project specific formatting automatically.
  You can also install the https://github.com/spring-io/spring-javaformat/#intellij-idea[Spring JavaFormat IntelliJ Plugin] or format the code from the Gradle build by running `./gradlew format`.
  Note that if you have format violations in `buildSrc`, you can fix them by running `./gradlew -p buildSrc format` from the project root directory.
* The build includes Checkstyle rules for many of our code conventions. Run `./gradlew checkstyleMain checkstyleTest` if you want to check your changes are compliant.
* Make sure all new `.java` files have a Javadoc class comment with at least an `@author` tag identifying you, and preferably at least a paragraph on what the class is for.
* Add the ASF license header comment to all new `.java` files (copy from existing files in the project).
* Add yourself as an `@author` to the `.java` files that you modify substantially (more than cosmetic changes).
* Add some Javadocs.
* A few unit tests would help a lot as well -- someone has to do it.
* Verification tasks, including tests and Checkstyle, can be executed by running `./gradlew check` from the project root.
* If no-one else is using your branch, please rebase it against the current master (or other target branch in the main project).
* When writing a commit message please follow https://tbaggery.com/2008/04/19/a-note-about-git-commit-messages.html[these conventions].



== Working with the Code
For information on editing, building, and testing the code, see the https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-boot/wiki/Working-with-the-Code[Working with the Code] page on the project wiki.
