# Contributing to Systemless
Thanks for helping improve Systemless. These guidelines apply to every
contribution, whether it is prepared manually or with automated tools.
## Contributor terms
Systemless has some short [contributor terms](./CLA.md).
You keep ownership of your work and Systemless remains GPL-licensed. The terms
also allow contributions to be included in separately licensed paid releases,
such as a Mac App Store app, which can help support continued development of
the project.
Existing GPL rights remain unaffected.
If you are not comfortable with those terms, that's completely fine. Please
open an issue instead and we can discuss the change without accepting
contributed code.
## Before making changes
- Read the project context and build instructions in `README.md`.
- Use a public issue to record a defect before opening a pull request that
fixes it.
- Keep issues and pull requests scoped to the standalone Systemless repository
and its public interfaces.
## Issue and pull-request evidence
- Attach screenshots and other media used only by an issue or pull request to
that GitHub conversation.
- Do not commit issue-only or pull-request-only evidence to the repository or
create a repository-hosted discussion-attachment directory.
- Commit images only when project documentation, tests, examples, or shipped
assets consume them.
- Prefer focused automated tests or fixtures over screenshots when evidence can
be expressed as a durable regression check.
## Validation
Run checks appropriate to the change. The main project checks are:
```sh
cargo build --release
cargo test --lib
cargo check --no-default-features
cargo package
```
## Commits and pull requests
- Use a one-line Conventional Commit message with no attribution trailer.
- Keep commits focused on one coherent change.
- Use pull requests for changes to the public repository and avoid merge
commits.