The following is a set of guidelines for contributing to the `wabbajack-tools/wabbajack` repo on GitHub. These are guidelines but not rules, so be free to propose changes.
When you encounter problems with the application, go to our [Discord](https://discord.gg/zgbrkmA) server first and ask for help there. Before creating a new Issue, take a look at the others to avoid getting the [Duplicate](https://github.com/wabbajack-tools/wabbajack/labels/duplicate) label.
Creating a bug report is as easy as navigating to the [Issues](https://github.com/wabbajack-tools/wabbajack/issues) page and clicking the [New Issue](https://github.com/wabbajack-tools/wabbajack/issues/new/choose) button.
* **Use a clear and descriptive title** for the issue to identify the problem.
* **Describe the exact steps which reproduce the problem** in as many details as possible. Trace the steps you took and **don't just say what you did, but explain how you did it**.
* **Upload the stacktrace or your entire log file** to the issue using the [Code Highlighting](https://github.com/adam-p/markdown-here/wiki/Markdown-Cheatsheet#code) feature of Markdown.
Enhancements can be everything from fixing typos to a complete revamp of documents in the repo. You can just use GitHub for making changes by clicking the pencil icon in the top right corner of a file.
This is where the fun begins. Wabbajack is programmed in C# so having a decent amount of knowledge in that language or in C/C++ is good to have. You also want to make sure that you have a basic understanding of the Git workflow.
You can download it [here](https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/) but make sure to select the Community Edition as the other ones come at a cost. When installing Visual Studio you will be prompted to select a Workload and components. You will need the following:
1) **Fork and clone the project:** go to the GitHub repo page, click the fork button, copy the url from the forked repo, navigate to your project folder, open Git Bash or normal command prompt and type `git clone url name` and replace url with the copied URL and name with the folder name.
2) **Open Wabbajack.sln** in Visual Studio 2019.
3) **Download NuGet Packages** by selecting the solution and *Right Click* -> *Restore NuGet Packages*.
It may take a while for Visual Studio to download all packages and update all References so be patient. Once all packages are downloaded go and try building Wabbajack. If the build is successful then good job. If not, head over to the *#wabbajack-development* channel on the discord and talk about your build error.
As a C# project, you should follow the [C# Coding Style](https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/blob/master/Documentation/coding-guidelines/coding-style.md). Further more you should never submit commits to your *master* branch, even if it's just a fork. Create a new branch with a meaningful name or the name of your issue/request and commit to that.
Fetch all the branches of that remote into remote-tracking branches, such as upstream/master:
`git fetch upstream`
Rewrite your master branch so that any commits of yours that
aren't already in upstream/master are replayed on top of that
other branch:
`git rebase upstream/master`
#### Submitting Code Changes
Before you go and open a pull request, make sure that your code actually runs. Build the project with your changes and test the application with its new features against your testing modlist. This testing modlist should be an MO2 installation with some mods installed that worked on the version without your changes and was not modified since then.
If everything works as intended and you found no bugs in testing, go ahead and open a pull request. Your request should contain information about why you want to change something, what you changed and how you did it.
