Contributing Guidelines

Read the following guide if you’re interested in contributing to cluster-api.

Contributor License Agreements

We’d love to accept your patches! Before we can take them, we have to jump a couple of legal hurdles.

Please fill out either the individual or corporate Contributor License Agreement (CLA). More information about the CLA and instructions for signing it can be found here.

NOTE: Only original source code from you and other people that have signed the CLA can be accepted into the *repository.

Finding Things That Need Help

If you’re new to the project and want to help, but don’t know where to start, we have a semi-curated list of issues that should not need deep knowledge of the system. Have a look and see if anything sounds interesting. Before starting to work on the issue, make sure that it doesn’t have a lifecycle/active label. If the issue has been assigned, reach out to the assignee. Alternatively, read some of the docs on other controllers and try to write your own, file and fix any/all issues that come up, including gaps in documentation!

Contributing a Patch

  1. If you haven’t already done so, sign a Contributor License Agreement (see details above).
  2. If working on an issue, signal other contributors that you are actively working on it using /lifecycle active.
  3. Fork the desired repo, develop and test your code changes.
  4. Submit a pull request.
    1. All code PR must be labeled with one of
      • ⚠️ (:warning:, major or breaking changes)
      • ✨ (:sparkles:, feature additions)
      • 🐛 (:bug:, patch and bugfixes)
      • 📖 (:book:, documentation or proposals)
      • 🌱 (:seedling:, minor or other)

All changes must be code reviewed. Coding conventions and standards are explained in the official developer docs. Expect reviewers to request that you avoid common go style mistakes in your PRs.

Triaging E2E test failures

When you submit a change to the Cluster API repository as set of validation jobs is automatically executed by prow and the results report is added to a comment at the end of your PR.

Some jobs run linters or unit test, and in case of failures, you can repeat the same operation locally using make test lint-full [etc..] in order to investigate and potential issues. Prow logs usually provide hints about the make target you should use
(there might be more than one command that needs to be run).

End-to-end (E2E) jobs create real Kubernetes clusters by building Cluster API artifacts with the latest changes. In case of E2E test failures, usually it’s required to access the “Artifacts” link on the top of the prow logs page to triage the problem.

The artifact folder contains:

  • A folder with the clusterctl local repository used for the test, where you can find components yaml and cluster templates.
  • A folder with logs for all the clusters created during the test. Following logs/info are available:
    • Controller logs (only if the cluster is a management cluster).
    • Dump of the Cluster API resources (only if the cluster is a management cluster).
    • Machine logs (only if the cluster is a workload cluster)

In case you want to run E2E test locally, please refer to the Testing guide.

Reviewing a Patch

Reviews

Parts of the following content have been adapted from https://google.github.io/eng-practices/review.

Any Kubernetes organization member can leave reviews and /lgtm a pull request.

Code reviews should generally look at:

  • Design: Is the code well-designed and consistent with the rest of the system?
  • Functionality: Does the code behave as the author (or linked issue) intended? Is the way the code behaves good for its users?
  • Complexity: Could the code be made simpler? Would another developer be able to easily understand and use this code when they come across it in the future?
  • Tests: Does the code have correct and well-designed tests?
  • Naming: Did the developer choose clear names for variable, types, methods, functions, etc.?
  • Comments: Are the comments clear and useful? Do they explain the why rather than what?
  • Documentation: Did the developer also update relevant documentation?

See Code Review in Cluster API for a more focused list of review items.

Approvals

Please see the Kubernetes community document on pull requests for more information about the merge process.

  • A PR is approved by one of the project maintainers and owners after reviews.
  • Approvals should be the very last action a maintainer takes on a pull request.

Backporting a Patch

Cluster API maintains older versions through release-X.Y branches. We accept backports of bug fixes to the most recent release branch. For example, if the most recent branch is release-0.2, and the master branch is under active development for v0.3.0, a bug fix that merged to master that also affects v0.2.x may be considered for backporting to release-0.2. We generally do not accept PRs against older release branches.

Features and bugs

Open issues to report bugs, or minor features.

For big feature, API and contract amendments, we follow the CAEP process as outlined below.

Proposal process (CAEP)

The Cluster API Enhacement Proposal is the process this project uses to adopt new features, or changes to the APIs.

Experiments

Proof of concepts, code experiments, or other initiatives can live under the exp folder and behind a feature gate.

  • Experiments SHOULD not modify any of the publicly exposed APIs (e.g. CRDs).
  • Experiments SHOULD not modify any existing CRD types outside of the experimental API group(s).
  • Experiments SHOULD not modify any existing command line contracts.
  • Experiments MUST not cause any breaking changes to existing (non-experimental) Go APIs.
  • Experiments SHOULD introduce utility helpers in the go APIs for experiments that cross multiple components and require support from bootstrap, control plane, or infrastructure providers.
  • Experiments follow a strict lifecycle: Alpha -> Beta prior to Graduation.
    • Alpha-stage experiments:
      • SHOULD not be enabled by default and any feature gates MUST be marked as ‘Alpha’
      • MUST be associated with a CAEP that is merged and in at least a provisional state
      • MAY be considered inactive and marked as deprecated if the following does not happen within the course of 1 minor release cycle:
        • Transition to Beta-stage
        • Active development towards progressing to Beta-stage
        • Either direct or downstream user evaluation
      • Any deprecated Alpha-stage experiment MAY be removed in the next minor release.
    • Beta-stage experiments:
      • SHOULD be enabled by default, and any feature gates MUST be marked as ‘Beta’
      • MUST be associated with a CAEP that is at least in the experimental state
      • MUST support conversions for any type changes
      • MUST remain backwards compatible unless updates are coinciding with a breaking Cluster API release
      • MAY be considered inactive and marked as deprecated if the following does not happen within the course of 1 minor release cycle:
        • Graduate
        • Active development towards Graduation
        • Either direct or downstream user consumption
      • Any deprecated Beta-stage experiment MAY be removed after being deprecated for an entire minor release.
  • Experiment Graduation MUST coincide with a breaking Cluster API release
  • Experiment Graduation checklist:
    • MAY provide a way to be disabled, any feature gates MUST be marked as ‘GA’
    • MUST undergo a full Kubernetes-style API review and update the CAEP with the plan to address any issues raised
    • CAEP MUST be in an implementable state and is fully up to date with the current implementation
    • CAEP MUST define transition plan for moving out of the experimental api group and code directories
    • CAEP MUST define any upgrade steps required for Existing Management and Workload Clusters
    • CAEP MUST define any upgrade steps required to be implemented by out-of-tree bootstrap, control plane, and infrastructure providers.

Breaking Changes

Breaking changes are generally allowed in the master branch, as this is the branch used to develop the next minor release of Cluster API.

There may be times, however, when master is closed for breaking changes. This is likely to happen as we near the release of a new minor version.

Breaking changes are not allowed in release branches, as these represent minor versions that have already been released. These versions have consumers who expect the APIs, behaviors, etc. to remain stable during the life time of the patch stream for the minor release.

Examples of breaking changes include:

  • Removing or renaming a field in a CRD
  • Removing or renaming a CRD
  • Removing or renaming an exported constant, variable, type, or function
  • Updating the version of critical libraries such as controller-runtime, client-go, apimachinery, etc.
    • Some version updates may be acceptable, for picking up bug fixes, but maintainers must exercise caution when reviewing.

There may, at times, need to be exceptions where breaking changes are allowed in release branches. These are at the discretion of the project’s maintainers, and must be carefully considered before merging. An example of an allowed breaking change might be a fix for a behavioral bug that was released in an initial minor version (such as v0.3.0).

Google Doc Viewing Permissions

To gain viewing permissions to google docs in this project, please join either the kubernetes-dev or kubernetes-sig-cluster-lifecycle google group.

Issue and Pull Request Management

Anyone may comment on issues and submit reviews for pull requests. However, in order to be assigned an issue or pull request, you must be a member of the Kubernetes SIGs GitHub organization.

If you are a Kubernetes GitHub organization member, you are eligible for membership in the Kubernetes SIGs GitHub organization and can request membership by opening an issue against the kubernetes/org repo.

However, if you are a member of any of the related Kubernetes GitHub organizations but not of the Kubernetes org, you will need explicit sponsorship for your membership request. You can read more about Kubernetes membership and sponsorship here.

Cluster API maintainers can assign you an issue or pull request by leaving a /assign <your Github ID> comment on the issue or pull request.