Contributing#
Thank you for your interest in contributing to the biocommons community! Contributions are welcome and greatly appreciated. There are many types of contributions and you don't need to be a developer!
Your first step should be to connect to the community by joining the Biocommons Slack and introducing yourself in the #intros channel! You should also join one or more Biocommons discussion lists.
Ways to Contribute#
Write code: fix bugs and implement features#
Obviously, our reason for being here is to write high-quality bioinformatics tools. If you want to write code, please read our Coding Guidelines first. Not ready to contribute code? No problem -- keep reading!
Report bugs#
See something that doesn't work the way you expect? Ask about it on slack or a mailing list. And, if you think it's a bug, report it in the project's issue tracker; see the Projects page for links.
Foster a strong community: Triage issues, refine features, plan hackathons#
One of the most valuable places people can contribute is to respond to issues on GitHub and mailing lists. You might ask people to clarify a problem, suggest initial remedies, or work with a group of users on refining a feature request. Responding to issues often falls to developers, so having your help with triaging issues directly adds to the time that developers can spend fixing bugs and implementing features. Being a bridge between the community and developers great way for you to learn how the tools work if you want to ease into becoming a contributor.
We also have periodic hackathons, which are fun and work to plan.
Write and maintaining documentation#
Writing and maintaining good documentation is hard! As with triaging issues and features, this task often falls to developers, your help creates space for keeping the project moving forward and is a great way to learn.
Help with SeqRepo and UTA releases#
The biocommons maintains SeqRepo and UTA snapshots. These require experience with the code as well as experience with data processing automation and quality control. If you'd like to help, get in touch!
Contribute your superpower!#
Do you have other superpowers to lend? Graphics? Project management? Developer experience? Writing? Something else? Great! Get in touch and let us know how you'd like to contribute.