We’re always grateful for contributions to Django’s code. Indeed, bug reports\nwith associated contributions will get fixed far more quickly than those\nwithout a solution.
\nIf you are fixing a really trivial issue, for example changing a word in the\ndocumentation, the preferred way to provide the patch is using GitHub pull\nrequests without a Trac ticket.
\nSee Working with Git and GitHub for more\ndetails on how to use pull requests.
\nIn an open-source project with hundreds of contributors around the world, it’s\nimportant to manage communication efficiently so that work doesn’t get\nduplicated and contributors can be as effective as possible.
\nHence, our policy is for contributors to „claim” tickets in order to let other\ndevelopers know that a particular bug or feature is being worked on.
\nIf you have identified a contribution you want to make and you’re capable of\nfixing it (as measured by your coding ability, knowledge of Django internals\nand time availability), claim it by following these steps:
\nLog in using your GitHub account or create an account in our ticket\nsystem. If you have an account but have forgotten your password, you can\nreset it using the password reset page.
If a ticket for this issue doesn’t exist yet, create one in our\nticket tracker. Remember that proposals for new features should follow\nthe process for suggesting new features.
If a ticket for this issue already exists and has been accepted, make sure\nnobody else has claimed it. To do this, look at the „Owned by” section of\nthe ticket. If it’s assigned to „nobody,” then it’s available to be claimed.\nOtherwise, somebody else may be working on this ticket. Either find another\nbug/feature to work on, or contact the developer working on the ticket to\noffer your help. If a ticket has been assigned for weeks or months without\nany activity, it’s probably safe to reassign it to yourself. If a ticket\nhasn’t been approved yet, join the conversation.
Log into your account, if you haven’t already, by clicking „GitHub Login”\nor „DjangoProject Login” in the upper left of the ticket page. Once logged\nin, you can then click the „Modify Ticket” button near the bottom of the\npage.
Claim the ticket by clicking the „assign to” radio button in the „Action”\nsection. Your username will be filled in the text box by default.
Finally, click the „Submit changes” button at the bottom to save.
Once you’ve claimed a ticket, you have a responsibility to work on that ticket\nin a reasonably timely fashion. If you don’t have time to work on it, either\nunclaim it or don’t claim it in the first place!
\nIf there’s no sign of progress on a particular claimed ticket for a week or\ntwo, another developer may ask you to relinquish the ticket claim so that it’s\nno longer monopolized and somebody else can claim it.
\nIf you’ve claimed a ticket and it’s taking a long time (days or weeks) to code,\nkeep everybody updated by posting comments on the ticket. If you don’t provide\nregular updates, and you don’t respond to a request for a progress report,\nyour claim on the ticket may be revoked.
\nAs always, more communication is better than less communication!
\nGoing through the steps of claiming tickets is overkill in some cases.
\nIn the case of small changes, such as typos in the documentation or small bugs\nthat will only take a few minutes to fix, you don’t need to jump through the\nhoops of claiming tickets. Submit your changes directly and you’re done!
\nIt is always acceptable, regardless of whether someone has claimed it or not,\nto link proposals to a ticket if you happen to have the changes ready.
\nMake sure that any contribution you do fulfills at least the following\nrequirements:
\nThe code required to fix a problem or add a feature is an essential part\nof a solution, but it is not the only part. A good fix should also include a\nregression test to\nvalidate the behavior that has been fixed and to prevent the problem from\narising again. Also, if some tickets are relevant to the code that you’ve\nwritten, mention the ticket numbers in some comments in the test so that one\ncan easily trace back the relevant discussions after your patch gets\ncommitted, and the tickets get closed.
If the code adds a new feature, or modifies the behavior of an existing\nfeature, the change should also contain documentation.
When you think your work is ready to be reviewed, send a GitHub pull\nrequest. If you can’t\nsend a pull request for some reason, you can also use patches in Trac. When\nusing this style, follow these guidelines.
\nSubmit patches in the format returned by the git diff command.
Attach patches to a ticket in the ticket tracker, using the „attach\nfile” button. Please don’t put the patch in the ticket description\nor comment unless it’s a single line patch.
Name the patch file with a .diff extension; this will let the ticket\ntracker apply correct syntax highlighting, which is quite helpful.
Regardless of the way you submit your work, follow these steps.
\nMake sure your code fulfills the requirements in our contribution\nchecklist.
Check the „Has patch” box on the ticket and make sure the „Needs\ndocumentation”, „Needs tests”, and „Patch needs improvement” boxes aren’t\nchecked. This makes the ticket appear in the „Patches needing review” queue\non the Development dashboard.
A wider community discussion is required when a patch introduces new Django\nfunctionality and makes some sort of design decision. This is especially\nimportant if the approach involves a deprecation\nor introduces breaking changes.
\nThe following are different approaches for gaining feedback from the community.
\nIf you have an idea for a new feature, please create a new proposal (or join an\nexisting discussion) following the process for suggesting new features. You should explain the need for the change, go into\ndetails of the approach and discuss alternatives.
\nYou can propose a change (that is not a new feature idea) on the\nDjango Forum. You should explain the need for the change, go into details of\nthe approach and discuss alternatives.
\nPlease include a link to such discussions in your contributions.
\nDjango does not accept experimental features. All features must follow our\ndeprecation policy. Hence, it can\ntake months or years for Django to iterate on an API design.
\nIf you need user feedback on a public interface, it is better to create a\nthird-party package first. You can iterate on the public API much faster, while\nalso validating the need for the feature.
\nOnce this package becomes stable and there are clear benefits of incorporating\naspects into Django core, the next step is to propose its inclusion by\nfollowing the process for suggesting new features.
\nSimilar to Python’s PEPs, Django has Django Enhancement Proposals or DEPs. A\nDEP is a design document which provides information to the Django community, or\ndescribes a new feature or process for Django. They provide concise technical\nspecifications of features, along with rationales. DEPs are also the primary\nmechanism for proposing and collecting community input on major new features.
\nBefore considering writing a DEP, it is recommended to first open a discussion\nfollowing the process for suggesting new features.\nThis allows the community to provide feedback and helps refine the proposal.\nOnce the DEP is ready, the Steering Council votes on\nwhether to accept it.
\nSome examples of DEPs that have been approved and fully implemented:
\n\nThere are a couple of reasons that code in Django might be deprecated:
\nIf a feature has been improved or modified in a backwards-incompatible way,\nthe old feature or behavior will be deprecated.
Sometimes Django will include a backport of a Python library that’s not\nincluded in a version of Python that Django currently supports. When Django\nno longer needs to support the older version of Python that doesn’t include\nthe library, the library will be deprecated in Django.
As the deprecation policy\ndescribes, the first release of Django that deprecates a feature (A.B)\nshould raise a RemovedInDjangoXXWarning (where XX is the Django version\nwhere the feature will be removed) when the deprecated feature is invoked.\nAssuming we have good test coverage, these warnings are converted to errors\nwhen running the test suite with warnings enabled:\npython -Wa runtests.py. Thus, when adding a RemovedInDjangoXXWarning\nyou need to eliminate or silence any warnings generated when running the tests.
The first step is to remove any use of the deprecated behavior by Django\nitself. Next you can silence warnings in tests that actually test the\ndeprecated behavior by using the ignore_warnings decorator, either at the\ntest or class level:
In a particular test:
\nfrom django.test import ignore_warnings\nfrom django.utils.deprecation import RemovedInDjangoXXWarning\n\n\n@ignore_warnings(category=RemovedInDjangoXXWarning)\ndef test_foo(self): ...\nFor an entire test case:
\nfrom django.test import ignore_warnings\nfrom django.utils.deprecation import RemovedInDjangoXXWarning\n\n\n@ignore_warnings(category=RemovedInDjangoXXWarning)\nclass MyDeprecatedTests(unittest.TestCase): ...\nYou should also add a test for the deprecation warning:
\nfrom django.utils.deprecation import RemovedInDjangoXXWarning\n\n\ndef test_foo_deprecation_warning(self):\n msg = "Expected deprecation message"\n with self.assertWarnsMessage(RemovedInDjangoXXWarning, msg) as ctx:\n # invoke deprecated behavior\n ...\n self.assertEqual(ctx.filename, __file__)\nIt’s important to include a RemovedInDjangoXXWarning comment above code\nwhich has no warning reference, but will need to be changed or removed when the\ndeprecation ends. This could include hooks which have been added to keep the\nprevious behavior, or standalone items that are unnecessary or unused when the\ndeprecation ends. For example:
import warnings\nfrom django.utils.deprecation import RemovedInDjangoXXWarning, django_file_prefixes\n\n\n# RemovedInDjangoXXWarning.\ndef old_private_helper():\n # Helper function that is only used in foo().\n pass\n\n\ndef foo():\n warnings.warn(\n "foo() is deprecated.",\n category=RemovedInDjangoXXWarning,\n skip_file_prefixes=django_file_prefixes(),\n )\n old_private_helper()\n ...\nFinally, there are a couple of updates to Django’s documentation to make:
\nIf the existing feature is documented, mark it deprecated in documentation\nusing the .. deprecated:: A.B annotation. Include a short description\nand a note about the upgrade path if applicable.
Add a description of the deprecated behavior, and the upgrade path if\napplicable, to the current release notes (docs/releases/A.B.txt) under\nthe „Features deprecated in A.B” heading.
Add an entry in the deprecation timeline\n(docs/internals/deprecation.txt) under the appropriate version\ndescribing what code will be removed.
Once you have completed these steps, you are finished with the deprecation.\nIn each feature release, all\nRemovedInDjangoXXWarnings matching the new version are removed.
The django.utils.deprecation module provides some helpful deprecation\nutilities, such as a @deprecate_posargs decorator to assist with converting\npositional-or-keyword arguments to keyword-only. See the inline documentation\nin the module source.
It’s important to test local changes using a Django project. This allows\nensuring that the changes behave as expected in a real environment, especially\nfor user-facing features such as templates, forms, or the admin.
\nTo do this:
\nCreate a virtual environment and install the cloned copy of Django in\neditable mode.
Set up a Django project outside the source tree (you can use the first\npart of the tutorial for guidance).
With this setup, any changes made to the Django checkout will take effect\nimmediately in the test project, allowing manual testing of contributions\nagainst a new or existing app.
\nFor information on JavaScript contributions, see the JavaScript patches\ndocumentation.
\nPatches aiming to deliver a performance improvement should provide benchmarks\nshowing the before and after impact of the patch and sharing the commands for\nreviewers to reproduce.
\ndjango-asv benchmarksLink to this heading#django-asv monitors the performance of Django code over time. These\nbenchmarks can be run on a pull request by labeling the pull request with\nbenchmark. Adding to these benchmarks is highly encouraged.
Use this checklist to review a pull request. If this contribution would not be\nconsidered trivial, first ensure it has an accepted\nticket before proceeding with the review.
\nIf the pull request passes all the criteria below and is not your own, please\nset the „Triage Stage” on the corresponding Trac ticket to „Ready for checkin”.\nIf you’ve left comments for improvement on the pull request, please tick the\nappropriate flags on the Trac ticket based on the results of your review:\n„Patch needs improvement”, „Needs documentation”, and/or „Needs tests”. As time\nand interest permit, mergers do final reviews of „Ready for checkin” tickets\nand will either commit the changes or bump it back to „Accepted” if further\nwork needs to be done.
\nIf you’re looking to become a member of the triage & review team, doing\nthorough reviews of contributions is a great way to earn trust.
\nLooking for a patch to review? Check out the „Patches needing review” section\nof the Django Development Dashboard.
\nLooking to get your pull request reviewed? Ensure the Trac flags on the ticket\nare set so that the ticket appears in that queue.
\nIs the pull request a single squashed commit with a message that follows our\ncommit message format?
Are you the patch author and a new contributor? Please add yourself to the\nAUTHORS file. At your option, submit a\nContributor License Agreement.
Does this have an accepted ticket on Trac? All contributions require a ticket\nunless the change is considered trivial.
Does the coding style conform to our\nguidelines? Are there any black, blacken-docs, flake8,\nisort, or zizmor errors? You can install the pre-commit hooks to automatically catch these errors.
If the change is backwards incompatible in any way, is there a note\nin the release notes (docs/releases/A.B.txt)?
Is Django’s test suite passing?
If there is a code coverage report\ncomment on the pull request, have you reviewed the missing coverage in\ncontext (considering database/platform-specific limitations)?
If the change affects the Django admin or rendered HTML output, has\naccessibility testing been done?
Does the documentation build without any errors (make html, or\nmake.bat html on Windows, from the docs directory)?
Does the documentation follow the writing style guidelines in\nWriting documentation?
Are there any spelling errors?
Is there a proper regression test (the test should fail before the fix\nis applied)?
If it’s a bug that qualifies for a backport to the stable version of Django, is there a\nrelease note in docs/releases/A.B.C.txt? Bug fixes that will be applied\nonly to the main branch don’t need a release note.
Are there tests to „exercise” all of the new code?
Is there a release note in docs/releases/A.B.txt?
Is there documentation for the feature and is it annotated\nappropriately with\n.. versionadded:: A.B or .. versionchanged:: A.B?
See the Deprecating a feature guide.
\n