Why contribute? Read our propaganda at We want YOU to contribute to this book!.

3.8.2. How to contribute#

  • Something is wrong/misleading: Fix it with a merge request or raise the issue by creating a GitLab issue. If you are unsure about it, you can ask on questions.belle2.org before.

  • You notice that something is missing:

    • If you’re not sure whether it belongs here, ask the librarians, e.g. by creating a GitLab issue or per email. You can either assign the GitLab issue to someone you like or submit a merge request for it yourself (preferred).

    • If it is already marked as a todo item, check if someone else is working on it (search on GitLab) and if not, submit a merge request

Understanding Sphinx and RST#

This webpage is built with Sphinx using source files in reStructuredText (*.rst) format.

See How to document your code with Sphinx to learn more about these tools.

Hint

If you want to learn sphinx by looking at the sources of various pages, click on the View page source button on the top right of the web page.

Hint

The source file of each file is apparent from the URL. E.g. this page has the URL .../online_book/how_to_contribute.html, so your source file is in ${BELLE2_LOCAL_DIR}/online_book/how_to_contribute.rst.

Submitting a MR#

You need to

  1. Create a development setup as explained in Development Setup

  2. Change to a new branch feature/describe-your-change or bugfix/something (if your merge request is based on a GitLab issue, you can name it in the MR description). You will not be able to push your branch if it isn’t prefixed with feature/ or bugfix/

  3. Make your changes

  4. Optionally: Preview them locally as described in How to document your code with Sphinx

  5. Push your branch

  6. Create a MR following the guidelines outlined at Opening a merge request

See also

You already opened a MR for a test repository in Version Control with Git, remember? Basically this is exactly the same procedure.