===============
Committing code
===============

This section is addressed to the :doc:`/internals/committers` and to anyone
interested in knowing how code gets committed into Django core.

Commit access
-------------

Django has two types of committers:

Core committers
    These are people who have a long history of contributions to Django's
    codebase, a solid track record of being polite and helpful on the
    mailing lists, and a proven desire to dedicate serious time to Django's
    development. The bar is high for full commit access.

Partial committers
    These are people who are "domain experts." They have direct check-in
    access to the subsystems that fall under their jurisdiction, and they're
    given a formal vote in questions that involve their subsystems. This type
    of access is likely to be given to someone who contributes a large
    subframework to Django and wants to continue to maintain it.

    Partial commit access is granted by the same process as full
    committers. However, the bar is set lower; proven expertise in the area
    in question is likely to be sufficient.

Decisions on new committers will follow the process explained in
:ref:`how-we-make-decisions`. To request commit access, please contact an
existing committer privately. Public requests for commit access are potential
flame-war starters, and will be ignored.

Committing guidelines
---------------------

Please follow these guidelines when committing code to Django's Subversion
repository:

* For any medium-to-big changes, where "medium-to-big" is according to
  your judgment, please bring things up on the `django-developers`_
  mailing list before making the change.

  If you bring something up on `django-developers`_ and nobody responds,
  please don't take that to mean your idea is great and should be
  implemented immediately because nobody contested it. Django's lead
  developers don't have a lot of time to read mailing-list discussions
  immediately, so you may have to wait a couple of days before getting a
  response.

* Write detailed commit messages in the past tense, not present tense.

  * Good: "Fixed Unicode bug in RSS API."
  * Bad: "Fixes Unicode bug in RSS API."
  * Bad: "Fixing Unicode bug in RSS API."

* For commits to a branch, prefix the commit message with the branch name.
  For example: "magic-removal: Added support for mind reading."

* Limit commits to the most granular change that makes sense. This means,
  use frequent small commits rather than infrequent large commits. For
  example, if implementing feature X requires a small change to library Y,
  first commit the change to library Y, then commit feature X in a
  separate commit. This goes a *long way* in helping all core Django
  developers follow your changes.

* Separate bug fixes from feature changes.

  Bug fixes need to be added to the current bugfix branch as well as the
  current trunk.

* If your commit closes a ticket in the Django `ticket tracker`_, begin
  your commit message with the text "Fixed #abc", where "abc" is the
  number of the ticket your commit fixes. Example: "Fixed #123 -- Added
  support for foo". We've rigged Subversion and Trac so that any commit
  message in that format will automatically close the referenced ticket
  and post a comment to it with the full commit message.

  If your commit closes a ticket and is in a branch, use the branch name
  first, then the "Fixed #abc." For example:
  "magic-removal: Fixed #123 -- Added whizbang feature."

  For the curious: we're using a `Trac post-commit hook`_ for this.

  .. _Trac post-commit hook: http://trac.edgewall.org/browser/trunk/contrib/trac-post-commit-hook

* If your commit references a ticket in the Django `ticket tracker`_ but
  does *not* close the ticket, include the phrase "Refs #abc", where "abc"
  is the number of the ticket your commit references. We've rigged
  Subversion and Trac so that any commit message in that format will
  automatically post a comment to the appropriate ticket.

Reverting commits
-----------------

Nobody's perfect; mistakes will be committed. When a mistaken commit is
discovered, please follow these guidelines:

* Try very hard to ensure that mistakes don't happen. Just because we
  have a reversion policy doesn't relax your responsibility to aim for
  the highest quality possible. Really: double-check your work before
  you commit it in the first place!

* If possible, have the original author revert his/her own commit.

* Don't revert another author's changes without permission from the
  original author.

* If the original author can't be reached (within a reasonable amount
  of time -- a day or so) and the problem is severe -- crashing bug,
  major test failures, etc -- then ask for objections on the
  `django-developers`_ mailing list then revert if there are none.

* If the problem is small (a feature commit after feature freeze,
  say), wait it out.

* If there's a disagreement between the committer and the
  reverter-to-be then try to work it out on the `django-developers`_
  mailing list. If an agreement can't be reached then it should
  be put to a vote.

* If the commit introduced a confirmed, disclosed security
  vulnerability then the commit may be reverted immediately without
  permission from anyone.

* The release branch maintainer may back out commits to the release
  branch without permission if the commit breaks the release branch.

.. _django-developers: http://groups.google.com/group/django-developers
.. _ticket tracker: http://code.djangoproject.com/newticket
