So, you want to start helping out with libgit2? That's fantastic! We
welcome contributions and we promise we'll try to be nice.
This is a list of libgit2 related projects that new contributors can take on. It includes a number of good starter projects and well as some larger ideas that no one is actively working on.
Please start by reading the README.md, CONTRIBUTING.md, and CONVENTIONS.md files before diving into one of these projects. Those will explain our work flow and coding conventions to help ensure that your work will be easily integrated into libgit2.
Next, work through the build instructions and make sure you can clone the repository, compile it, and run the tests successfully. That will make sure that your development environment is set up correctly and you are ready to start on libgit2 development.
These are good small projects to get started with libgit2.
- Look at the
examples/programs, find an existing one that mirrors a core Git command and add a missing command-line option. There are many gaps right now and this helps demonstrate how to use the library. Here are some specific ideas:- Fix the
examples/diff.cimplementation of the-B(a.k.a.--break-rewrites) command line option to actually look for the optional[<n>][/<m>]configuration values. There is an existing comment that reads/* TODO: parse thresholds */. The trick to this one will be doing it in a manner that is clean and simple, but still handles the various cases correctly (e.g.-B/70%is apparently a legal setting). - Implement the
--log-sizeoption forexamples/log.c. I think all the data is available, you would just need to add the code into theprint_commit()routine (along with a way of passing the option into that function). - As an extension to the matching idea for
examples/log.c, add the-ioption to usestrcasestr()for matches. - For
examples/log.c, implement the--first-parentoption now that libgit2 supports it in the revwalk API.
- Fix the
- Pick a Git command that is not already emulated in
examples/and write a new example that mirrors the behavior. Examples don't have to be perfect emulations, but should demonstrate how to use the libgit2 APIs to get results that are similar to Git commands. This lets you (and us) easily exercise a particular facet of the API and measure compatability and feature parity with core git. - Submit a PR to clarify documentation! While we do try to document all of the APIs, your fresh eyes on the documentation will find areas that are confusing much more easily.
- Add support for the symref protocol extension, so we don't guess what the remote's default branch is #2006
If none of these appeal to you, take a look at our issues list to see if there are any unresolved issues you'd like to jump in on.
These are ideas for larger projects mostly taken from our backlog of Issues. Please don't dive into one of these as a first project for libgit2 - we'd rather get to know you first by successfully shipping your work on one of the smaller projects above.
- Port part of the Git test suite to run against the command line emulation in examples/
- Fix symlink support for files in the .git directory (i.e. don't overwrite the symlinks when writing the file contents back out)
- Implement a 'git describe' like API
- Add hooks API to enumerate and manage hooks (not run them at this point)
- Isolate logic of ignore evaluation into a standalone API
- Upgrade internal libxdiff code to latest from core Git
- Add a hashtable lookup for files in the index instead of binary search every time
- Make the index write the cache out to disk (with tests to gain confidence that the caching invalidation works correctly)
- Have the tree builder use a hash table when building instead of a list.
- Move the tagopt mechanism to the newer git 1.9 interpretation of --tags #2120