Commit access

What is commit access?

Having commit access means you have the ability to push code directly to the main Pioneer repository.

Its expected that anyone with commit access is trusted and responsible. As such, committers don't need to formally go through the code review process (though you should still be thinking about it; there's some good ideas in there).

How do I get commit access?

Usually, just by asking. If you're known to the other committers to be someone who can be trusted to be a good steward of the project (usually shown by the quality of previous contributions) then you'll be given access to push to the repository. This is deliberately a subjective measure, but rest assured, the bar is set pretty low. Its mostly just a check to make sure you aren't going to do something stupid.

In some circumstances you might be offered commit access. The same bar is set there. It usually happens when the other committers finds themselves thinking "this person would be a good committer".

What do I need to know when pushing?

There's a few things that are special to the way we work that you need to know about.

Code style

We have a code style guide. Learn it, love it. There's almost certainly something in there you'll hate, because we all have different opions on code style. Don't argue, just use it - its what we've got!

Code review

Read the page about the code review process. As a committer it doesn't directly apply to you, but there's good information about the types of problems that you should be looking for in your code before you push it.

Update the changelog

Changelog.txt is where we track the history of the project. Each time you make a change, add a brief description of it to the Changelog. Include the Github issue or pull request number if it has one. The description should be something that is understandable by players. Choose an appropriate category, start a new month header at the start of the month, and preserve the existing formatting. Have a look through the history to get a feel for how it works.

Don't break the build

Pioneer is regularly built by an autobuild script, sometimes as often as once per day. This is done using the Makefile/autotools system (all platforms). You must take care to ensure that everything that lands on the master branch builds correctly with the autotools/GCC build. This could be a problem for Windows-based developers using GCC; please do the best you can and ask for help if you need it.