| # General guidelines | |
| Here are some things to keep in mind for all types of contributions: | |
| - Follow the ["fork and pull request"](https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/exploring-projects-on-github/contributing-to-a-project) workflow. | |
| - Fill out the checked-in pull request template when opening pull requests. Note related issues and tag relevant maintainers. | |
| - Ensure your PR passes formatting, linting, and testing checks before requesting a review. | |
| - If you would like comments or feedback on your current progress, please open an issue or discussion and tag a maintainer. | |
| - See the sections on [Testing](/docs/contributing/code/setup#testing) and [Formatting and Linting](/docs/contributing/code/setup#formatting-and-linting) for how to run these checks locally. | |
| - Backwards compatibility is key. Your changes must not be breaking, except in case of critical bug and security fixes. | |
| - Look for duplicate PRs or issues that have already been opened before opening a new one. | |
| - Keep scope as isolated as possible. As a general rule, your changes should not affect more than one package at a time. | |
| ## Bugfixes | |
| We encourage and appreciate bugfixes. We ask that you: | |
| - Explain the bug in enough detail for maintainers to be able to reproduce it. | |
| - If an accompanying issue exists, link to it. Prefix with `Fixes` so that the issue will close automatically when the PR is merged. | |
| - Avoid breaking changes if possible. | |
| - Include unit tests that fail without the bugfix. | |
| If you come across a bug and don't know how to fix it, we ask that you open an issue for it describing in detail the environment in which you encountered the bug. | |
| ## New features | |
| We aim to keep the bar high for new features. We generally don't accept new core abstractions, changes to infra, changes to dependencies, | |
| or new agents/chains from outside contributors without an existing GitHub discussion or issue that demonstrates an acute need for them. | |
| - New features must come with docs, unit tests, and (if appropriate) integration tests. | |
| - New integrations must come with docs, unit tests, and (if appropriate) integration tests. | |
| - See [this page](/docs/contributing/integrations) for more details on contributing new integrations. | |
| - New functionality should not inherit from or use deprecated methods or classes. | |
| - We will reject features that are likely to lead to security vulnerabilities or reports. | |
| - Do not add any hard dependencies. Integrations may add optional dependencies. | |