Contributing

Thank you for thinking about contributing to WordPress' Gutenberg project! If you're unsure of anything, know that you're 💯 welcome to submit an issue or pull request on any topic. The worst that can happen is that you'll be politely directed to the best location to ask your question, or to change something in your pull request. We appreciate any sort of contribution, and don't want a wall of rules to get in the way of that.

As with all WordPress projects, we want to ensure a welcoming environment for everyone. With that in mind, all contributors are expected to follow our Code of Conduct.

Before contributing, we encourage you to read our Contributing Policy (you're here already!) and our Handbook. If you have any questions on any of these, please open an issue so we can help clarify them.

All WordPress projects are licensed under the GPLv2+, and all contributions to Gutenberg will be released under the GPLv2+ license. You maintain copyright over any contribution you make, and by submitting a pull request, you are agreeing to release that contribution under the GPLv2+ license.

Getting Started

Gutenberg is a Node.js-based project, built primarily in JavaScript.

The easiest way to get started (on MacOS, Linux, or Windows 10 with the Linux Subsystem) is by running the Local Environment setup script, ./bin/setup-local-env.sh. This will check if you have everything installed and updated, and help you download any extra tools you need.

For other version of Windows, or if you prefer to set things up manually, be sure to have Node.js installed first. You should be running a Node version matching the current active LTS release or newer for this plugin to work correctly. You can check your Node.js version by typing node -v in the Terminal prompt.

If you have an incompatible version of Node in your development environment, you can use nvm to change node versions on the command line:

npx nvm install
npx nvm use

You should also have the latest release of npm installed. npm is a separate project from Node.js and is updated frequently. If you've just installed Node.js which includes a version of npm within the installation you most likely will need to also update your npm installation. To update npm, type this into your terminal: npm install npm@latest -g

To test the plugin, or to contribute to it, you can clone this repository and build the plugin files using Node. How you do that depends on whether you're developing locally or uploading the plugin to a remote host.

Local Environment

First, you need a WordPress Environment to run the plugin on. The quickest way to get up and running is to use the provided docker setup. Install docker and docker-compose by following the most recent instructions on the docker site.

In the folder of your preference, clone this project and enter the working directory:

git clone git@github.com:WordPress/gutenberg.git
cd gutenberg

Then, run a setup script to check if docker and node are configured properly and starts the local WordPress instance. You may need to run this script multiple times if prompted.

./bin/setup-local-env.sh

If you're developing themes, or core WordPress functionality alongside Gutenberg, you can make the WordPress files accessible in wordpress/ by following these instructions instead:

If this is your first time setting up the environment, run DOCKER_ENV=localwpdev ./bin/setup-local-env.sh instead of ./bin/setup-local-env.sh
If you've already had the previous environment set up, you need to start fresh, and you can do that by first running docker-compose down --rmi all. After that you can repeat step 1.
If you turn off your computer or restart Docker, you can get your local WordPress dev enviroment back by typing docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose-localdev.yml up. If you just run docker-compose up, you will get the vanilla install that doesn't expose the WordPress folder.

If everything was successful, you'll see the following ascii art:

Welcome to...

,⁻⁻⁻·       .                 |
|  ،⁓’.   . |---  ,---. ,---. |---. ,---. ,---. ,---.
|   | |   | |     |---' |   | |   | |---' |     |   |
`---' `---' `---’ `---’ '   ` `---' `---’ `     `---|
                                                `---'

The WordPress installation should be available at http://localhost:8888 (username: admin, password: password). Inside the "docker" directory, you can use any docker command to interact with your containers. If this port is in use, you can override it in your docker-compose.override.yml file. If you're running e2e tests, this change will be used correctly.

To bring down this local WordPress instance later run:

docker-compose down

If you'd like to see your changes reflected in this local WordPress instance, run:

npm install
npm run dev

Alternatively, you can use your own local WordPress environment and clone this repository right into your wp-content/plugins directory.

Next, open a terminal (or if on Windows, a command prompt) and navigate to the repository you cloned. Now type npm install to get the dependencies all set up. Then you can type npm run dev in your terminal or command prompt to keep the plugin building in the background as you work on it.

On A Remote Server

Open a terminal (or if on Windows, a command prompt) and navigate to the repository you cloned. Now type npm install to get the dependencies all set up. Once that finishes, you can type npm run build. You can now upload the entire repository to your wp-content/plugins directory on your webserver and activate the plugin from the WordPress admin.

You can also type npm run package-plugin which will run the two commands above and create a zip file automatically for you which you can use to install Gutenberg through the WordPress admin.

Workflow

A good workflow for new contributors to follow is listed below:

Fork Gutenberg repository
Clone forked repository
Create new branch
Make code changes
Commit code changes within newly created branch
Push branch to forked repository
Submit Pull Request to Gutenberg repository

Ideally name your branches with prefixes and descriptions, like this: [type]/[change]. A good prefix would be:

add/ = add a new feature
try/ = experimental feature, "tentatively add"
update/ = update an existing feature

For example, add/gallery-block means you're working on adding a new gallery block.

You can pick among all the tickets, or some of the ones labelled Good First Issue.

The workflow is documented in greater detail in the repository management document.

Testing

Gutenberg contains both PHP and JavaScript code, and encourages testing and code style linting for both. It also incorporates end-to-end testing using Google Puppeteer. You can find out more details in Testing Overview document.

Managing packages

This repository uses lerna to manage Gutenberg modules and publish them as packages to npm.

Creating new package

When creating a new package you need to provide at least the following:

package.json based on the template:

{
	"name": "@wordpress/package-name",
	"version": "1.0.0-beta.0",
	"description": "Package description.",
	"author": "The WordPress Contributors",
	"license": "GPL-2.0-or-later",
	"keywords": [
		"wordpress"
	],
	"homepage": "https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/tree/master/packages/package-name/README.md",
	"repository": {
		"type": "git",
		"url": "https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg.git"
	},
	"bugs": {
		"url": "https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues"
	},
	"main": "build/index.js",
	"module": "build-module/index.js",
	"react-native": "src/index",
	"dependencies": {
		"@babel/runtime": "^7.0.0"
	},
	"publishConfig": {
		"access": "public"
	}
}

This assumes that your code is located in the src folder and will be transpiled with Babel.

.npmrc file which disables creating package-lock.json file for the package:
```
package-lock=false
```
README.md file containing at least:
- Package name
- Package description
- Installation details
- Usage example
- Code is Poetry logo (<br/><br/><p align="center"><img src="https://s.w.org/style/images/codeispoetry.png?1" alt="Code is Poetry." /></p>)

Maintaining changelogs

Maintaining dozens of npm packages is difficult—it can be tough to keep track of changes. That's why we use CHANGELOG.md files for each package to simplify the release process. All packages should follow the Semantic Versioning (semver) specification.

The developer who proposes a change (pull request) is responsible to choose the correct version increment (major, minor, or patch) according to the following guidelines:

Major version X (X.y.z | X > 0) should be changed with any backwards-incompatible/"breaking" change. This will usually occur at the final stage of deprecating and removing of a feature.
Minor version Y (x.Y.z | x > 0) should be changed when you add functionality or change functionality in a backwards-compatible manner. It must be incremented if any public API functionality is marked as deprecated.
Patch version Z (x.y.Z | x > 0) should be incremented when you make backwards-compatible bug fixes.

When in doubt, refer to Semantic Versioning specification.

Example:

## v1.2.2 (Unreleased)

### Bug Fix

- ...
- ...

If you need to add something considered a bug fix, you add the item to Bug Fix section and leave the version as 1.2.2.
If it's a new feature you add the item to New Feature section and change version to 1.3.0.
If it's a breaking change you want to introduce, add the item to Breaking Change section and bump the version to 2.0.0.
If you struggle to classify a change as one of the above, then it might be not necessary to include it.

The version bump is only necessary if one of the following applies:

There are no other unreleased changes.
The type of change you're introducing is incompatible (more severe) than the other unreleased changes.

Releasing packages

Lerna automatically releases all outdated packages. To check which packages are outdated and will be released, type npm run publish:check.

If you have the ability to publish packages, you must have 2FA enabled on your npm account.

Before releasing

Confirm that you're logged in to npm, by running npm whoami. If you're not logged in, run npm adduser to login.

If you're publishing a new package, ensure that its package.json file contains the correct publishConfig settings:

{
	"publishConfig": {
		"access": "public"
	}
}

You can check your package configs by running npm run lint-pkg-json.

Development release

Run the following command to release a dev version of the outdated packages, replacing 123456 with your 2FA code. Make sure you're using a freshly generated 2FA code, rather than one that's about to timeout. This is a little cumbersome, but helps to prevent the release process from dying mid-deploy.

NPM_CONFIG_OTP=123456 npm run publish:dev

Lerna will ask you which version number you want to choose for each package. For a dev release, you'll more likely want to choose the "prerelease" option. Repeat the same for all the outdated packages and confirm your version updates.

Lerna will then publish to npm, commit the package.json changes and create the git tags.

Production release

To release a production version for the outdated packages, run the following command, replacing 123456 with your (freshly generated, as above) 2FA code:

NPM_CONFIG_OTP=123456 npm run publish:prod

Choose the correct version based on CHANGELOG.md files, confirm your choices and let Lerna do its magic.

How Designers Can Contribute

If you'd like to contribute to the design or front-end, feel free to contribute to tickets labelled Design. We could use your thoughtful replies, mockups, animatics, sketches, doodles. Proposed changes are best done as minimal and specific iterations on the work that precedes it so we can compare. If you use Sketch, you can grab the source file for the mockups (updated April 6th).

Contribute to the Documentation

Documentation is automatically synced from master to the Gutenberg Documentation Website every 15 minutes.

To add a new documentation page, you'll have to create a Markdown file in the docs folder and add an item to the manifest file.

`@wordpress/component`

If you're contributing to the documentation of any component from the @wordpress/component package, take a look at its guidelines for contributing.

Reporting Security Issues

Please see SECURITY.md.

Localizing Gutenberg Plugin

To translate Gutenberg in your locale or language, select your locale here and translate Development (which contains the plugin's string) and/or Development Readme (please translate what you see in the Details tab of the plugin page).

A Global Translation Editor (GTE) or Project Translation Editor (PTE) with suitable rights will process your translations in due time.

Language packs are automatically generated once 95% of the plugin's strings are translated and approved for a locale.

The eventual inclusion of Gutenberg into WordPress core means that more than 51% of WordPress installations running a translated WordPress installation will have Gutenberg's translated strings compiled into the core language pack as well.

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CONTRIBUTING.md

CONTRIBUTING.md

Contributing

Getting Started

Local Environment

On A Remote Server

Workflow

Testing

Managing packages

Creating new package

Maintaining changelogs

Releasing packages

Before releasing

Development release

Production release

How Designers Can Contribute

Contribute to the Documentation

`@wordpress/component`

Reporting Security Issues

Localizing Gutenberg Plugin

Files

CONTRIBUTING.md

Latest commit

History

CONTRIBUTING.md

File metadata and controls

Contributing

Getting Started

Local Environment

On A Remote Server

Workflow

Testing

Managing packages

Creating new package

Maintaining changelogs

Releasing packages

Before releasing

Development release

Production release

How Designers Can Contribute

Contribute to the Documentation

@wordpress/component

Reporting Security Issues

Localizing Gutenberg Plugin

`@wordpress/component`