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Contributing to {lintr}

Source: .github/CONTRIBUTING.md

This outlines how to propose a change to lintr. For a detailed discussion on contributing to this, r-lib, and other tidyverse packages, please see the development contributing guide and our code review principles.

Fixing typos

You can fix typos, spelling mistakes, or grammatical errors in the documentation directly using the GitHub web interface, as long as the changes are made in the source file. This generally means you’ll need to edit roxygen2 comments in an .R, not a .Rd file. You can find the .R file that generates the .Rd by reading the comment in the first line.

Bigger changes

If you want to make a bigger change, it’s a good idea to first file an issue and make sure someone from the team agrees that it’s needed. If you’ve found a bug, please file an issue that illustrates the bug with a minimal reprex (this will also help you write a unit test, if needed). See the tidyverse guide on how to create a great issue for more advice.

Adding a new linter

If you wish to contribute a new linter, the Creating new linters article serves as a comprehensive guide.

Pull request process

  • Fork the package and clone onto your computer. If you haven’t done this before, we recommend using usethis::create_from_github("r-lib/lintr", fork = TRUE).

  • Install all development dependencies with devtools::install_dev_deps(), and then make sure the package passes R CMD check by running devtools::check(). If R CMD check doesn’t pass cleanly, it’s a good idea to ask for help before continuing.

  • Create a Git branch for your pull request (PR). We recommend using usethis::pr_init("brief-description-of-change"). At a minimum, please avoid submitting PRs from your fork’s main branch` as this can make the review process more complicated.

  • Make your changes, commit them to Git, and create a PR using usethis::pr_push(). Follow the prompts in your browser to complete the process. Use a concise title for your PR that summarizes the change, and include Fixes #issue-number in the PR description. Doing so will automatically close the linked issue when the PR is merged. For complicated changes, add a textual overview of what your PR does in the description. Consider breaking up large PRs into a chain of more digestible+focused smaller PRs.

  • For user-facing changes, add a bullet appropriately in the top section of NEWS.md (i.e. below the first header). Follow the style described in https://style.tidyverse.org/news.html. Most importantly, your audience for NEWS items is a package user, i.e., not a package developer.

Code style

  • New code should follow the tidyverse style guide. You can use the styler package to apply these styles.

  • We use roxygen2, with Markdown syntax, for documentation.

  • We use testthat for unit tests. Contributions with test cases included are easier to accept.

Code of Conduct

Please note that the lintr project is released with a Contributor Code of Conduct. By contributing to this project you agree to abide by its terms.