eden/CONTRIBUTING.md

Contributing

Eden has lots of different ways that you can contribute to its efforts, even without knowing how to write code:

• Donate! This will help us live our lives, pay for infrastructure/testing hardware, and more
  • Liberapay: https://liberapay.com/crueter
  • PayPal: business@eden-emu.dev
  • Bitcoin: bc1pknzdackezf6s5nxqwn6hx940a7e0k3lk7ggpczp9u4jn4a25lnyqrgvdxx
• Join our Discord community
• Submit bug reports or feature requests, or on Codeberg
• Contribute to our translation efforts

Code Contributions

Eden is free, open-source, copyleft software, licensed under the terms of the GPLv3. You would do well to familiarize yourself with the GPL, its FAQ, and free software as a concept before contributing. If these terms are not acceptable to you, then you shouldn't contribute.

Policies

• No LLM or AI usage, period, for patches, pull requests, issues, comments, debugging, brainstorming, etc.
  • For details on why, see the detailed AI policy.
• New code must follow the same general style as the surrounding codebase. Exceptions may be granted in certain cases.
• Maintainers reserve the right to change your patches and pull requests at will. We will try to avoid this.
  • You should respect all decisions made by the code owners in your particular subsystem. If you feel they are overstepping or are incorrect, don't be afraid to stand your ground!
• While we do not adhere to the terms of a formal code of conduct, you will generally be expected to respect other developers, contributors, and community members.
• You must have basic knowledge of Git. Knowing how to manage your branches and follow proper fork policies is a necessity.

Where do I start?

Anywhere you like! If you are facing an issue and want to fix it, go ahead. For new features, you are heavily encouraged to open a feature request on GitHub, Codeberg, or Forgejo first, discussing the motivations, potential implementation, and user flow of your desired feature. Our UI/UX designers will work with you to refine your feature before you actually choose to implement it.

You may also search for open issues on GitHub, Codeberg, or Forgejo. For larger features/refactors, you should first express your interest in the issue to ensure another developer isn't already working on it.

Great! Can I contribute already?

There are five primary ways to contribute.

• Submit pull requests directly to our source tree
  • You must first request an account on our Forgejo. See Signup
• Submit pull requests to our GitHub mirror
  • Note that this is subject to being removed by DMCA, so don't rely on this.
• Submit pull requests to our Codeberg mirror
  • Codeberg is not subject to draconian DMCA laws, but they have been hostile to emulators such as Torzu in the past. Thus, you shouldn't rely on this either.
• Submit patches to patch@eden-emu.dev
  • These must be in git format-patch format. You should familiarize yourself with the art of patching beforehand.
  • Alongside the contents of your email, please attach the patch/diff file itself for easy access and use.
• Email our developers at developers@eden-emu.dev with any of your relevant findings or code changes.

To test your changes, ensure to read the build documentation for your specific platform(s) to ensure everything compiles and works properly. You should also make sure that your branch is up-to-date with the upstream master branch before opening a pull request.

How do I sign up?

To sign up and begin contributing... (click to open)

Email crueter@crueter.xyz with the following format:

Subject: [Eden Git] Registration Request
Username: <Your Desired Username>
Email: <Your Desired Email>
I wish to sign up because... <your reason here>

Received mail that does not follow this format will be ignored.

Once your request is processed, you will receive a confirmation email with your temporary password and some information on Git access and policies. If you do not receive a response within 48 hours, feel free to send another email.

Warning

Some email providers may place the response email in your spam/junk folder; notable offenders include Gmail and Outlook. Always ensure to check your Spam or Junk folder.

Non-code Contributions

Alongside the other contribution methods listed up top, you can also choose to contribute through documentation, organization, or community guides. These can be done either through the code contribution methods described above, or created externally and shared via our Discord community.

If you have an external tool/page that you believe would be handy to integrate/link into Eden, please additionally email our developers at developers@eden-emu.dev. Do not submit vibe-coded or AI generated tools or applications.