16 KiB
Contributing to VTK-m
This page documents how to develop VTK-m through Git.
Git is an extremely powerful version control tool that supports many different "workflows" for individual development and collaboration. Here we document procedures used by the VTK-m development community. In the interest of simplicity and brevity we do not provide an explanation of why we use this approach.
Setup
Before you begin, perform initial setup:
-
Register GitLab Access to create an account and select a user name.
-
Fork VTK-m into your user's namespace on GitLab.
-
Use Git to create a local clone of the main VTK repository:
$ git clone https://gitlab.kitware.com/vtk/vtk-m.git $ cd vtk-m
The main repository will be configured as your
origin
remote. -
Run the developer setup script to prepare your VTK-m work tree and create Git command aliases used below:
$ ./Utilities/SetupForDevelopment.sh
This will prompt for your GitLab user name and configure a remote called
gitlab
to refer to it. -
(Optional but highly recommended.) Register with the VTK-m dashboard on Kitware's CDash instance to better know how your code performs in regression tests. After registering and signing in, click on "All Dashboards" link in the upper left corner, scroll down and click "Subscribe to this project" on the right of VTK-m.
-
(Optional but highly recommended.) Sign up for the VTK-m mailing list to communicate with other developers and users.
Workflow
VTK-m development uses a branchy workflow based on topic branches. Our collaboration workflow consists of three main steps:
-
Local Development:
-
Code Review (requires GitLab Access):
-
Integrate Changes:
- Merge a Topic (requires permission in GitLab)
Update
-
Update your local
master
branch:$ git checkout master $ git pull
-
Optionally push
master
to your fork in GitLab:$ git push gitlab master
Create a Topic
All new work must be committed on topic branches. Name topics like you might name functions: concise but precise. A reader should have a general idea of the feature or fix to be developed given just the branch name.
-
To start a new topic branch:
$ git fetch origin
-
For new development, start the topic from
origin/master
:$ git checkout -b my-topic origin/master
-
Edit files and create commits (repeat as needed):
$ edit file1 file2 file3 $ git add file1 file2 file3 $ git commit
Caveats:
- Data files must be placed under a folder explicitly named 'data'. This is required as VTK-m uses Git-LFS to efficiently support data files.
Guidelines for Commit Messages
Remember to motivate & summarize. When writing commit messages. Get into the habit of creating messages that have enough information for any developer to read and glean relevant information such as:
- Is this change important and why?
- If addressing an issue, which issue(s)?
- If a new feature, why is it useful and/or necessary?
- Are there background references or documentation?
A short description of what the issue being addressed and how will go a long way towards making the log more readable and the software more maintainable. VTK-m requires that your message start with a single subject line, followed by a blank line, followed by the message body which contains the more detailed explanatory text for the commit. You can consider a commit message to very similar to an email with the first line being the subject of an email and the rest of the text as the body.
Style guidelines for commit messages are as follows:
- Separate subject from body with a blank line
- Limit the subject line to 78 characters
- Capitalize the subject line
- Use the imperative mood in the subject line e.g. "Refactor foo" or "Fix Issue #12322", instead of "Refactoring foo", or "Fixing issue #12322".
- Wrap the body at 80 characters
- Use the body to explain
what
andwhy
and if applicable a briefhow
.
Share a Topic
When a topic is ready for review and possible inclusion, share it by pushing to a fork of your repository in GitLab. Be sure you have registered and signed in for GitLab Access and created your fork by visiting the main VTK-m GitLab repository page and using the "Fork" button in the upper right.
-
Checkout the topic if it is not your current branch:
$ git checkout my-topic
-
Push commits in your topic branch to your fork in GitLab:
$ git gitlab-push
Notes:
- If you are revising a previously pushed topic and have rewritten
the topic history, add
-f
or--force
to overwrite the destination. - The
gitlab-push
script also pushes themaster
branch to your fork in GitLab to keep it in sync with the upstreammaster
.
The output will include a link to the topic branch in your fork in GitLab and a link to a page for creating a Merge Request.
- If you are revising a previously pushed topic and have rewritten
the topic history, add
Create a Merge Request
When you pushed your topic branch, it will provide you with a url of the form
https://gitlab.kitware.com/<username>/vtk-m/merge_requests/new
You can copy/paste that into your web browser to create a new merge request. Alternately, you can visit your fork in GitLab, browse to the "Merge Requests" link on the left, and use the "New Merge Request" button in the upper right.
Once at the create merge request page, follow these steps. Many of these will be filled out for you.
-
In the "Source branch" box select the
<username>/vtk-m
repository and themy-topic
branch. -
In the "Target branch" box select the
vtk/vtk-m
repository and themaster
branch. It should be the default. -
Use the "Compare branches" button to proceed to the next page and fill out the merge request creation form.
-
In the "Title" field provide a one-line summary of the entire topic. This will become the title of the Merge Request.
Example Merge Request Title:
Add OpenMP Device Adapter
-
In the "Description" field provide a high-level description of the change the topic makes and any relevant information about how to try it.
- Use
@username
syntax to draw attention of specific developers. This syntax may be used anywhere outside literal text and code blocks. Or, wait until the next step and add comments to draw attention of developers. - Optionally use a fenced code block with type
message
to specify text to be included in the generated merge commit message when the topic is merged.
Example Merge Request Description:
This branch adds a new device adapter that uses new OpenMP 4+ features including Task groups to better handle unbalanced and irregular domains ```message Add a OpenMP 4+ task-based device adapter. ``` Cc: @user1 @user2
- Use
-
The "Assign to", "Milestone", and "Labels" fields may be left blank.
-
Use the "Submit merge request" button to create the merge request and visit its page.
Guidelines for Merge Requests
Remember to motivate & summarize. When creating a merge request, consider the reviewers and future perusers of the software. Provide enough information to motivate the merge request such as:
- Is this merge request important and why?
- If addressing an issue, which issue(s)?
- If a new feature, why is it useful and/or necessary?
- Are there background references or documentation?
Also provide a summary statement expressing what you did and if there is a choice in implementation or design pattern, the rationale for choosing a certain path. Notable software or data features should be mentioned as well.
A well written merge request will motivate your reviewers, and bring them up to speed faster. Future software developers will be able to understand the reasons why something was done, and possibly avoid chasing down dead ends, Although it may take you a little more time to write a good merge request, you’ll likely see payback in faster reviews and better understood and maintainable software.
Review a Merge Request
Add comments mentioning specific developers using @username
syntax to
draw their attention and have the topic reviewed. After typing @
and some
text, GitLab will offer completions for developers whose real names or user
names match.
Comments use GitLab Flavored Markdown for formatting. See GitLab documentation on Special GitLab References to add links to things like merge requests and commits in other repositories.
Reviews
Reviewers may add comments providing feedback or to acknowledge their approval. All comments use the GitLab Flavored Markdown, any line of a comment may be exactly one of the following votes followed by nothing but whitespace before the end of the line:
-1
or 👎 (:-1:
) means "The change is not ready for integration."+1
or 👍 (:+1:
) means "The change is ready for integration."
These are used to inform the author that a merge srequest has been approved for merging.
Fetching Changes
One may fetch the changes associated with a merge request by using the git fetch
command line shown at the top of the Merge Request page. It is of
the form:
$ git fetch https://gitlab.kitware.com/$username/vtk-m.git $branch
This updates the local FETCH_HEAD
to refer to the branch.
There are a few options for checking out the changes in a work tree:
-
One may checkout the branch:
$ git checkout FETCH_HEAD -b $branch
or checkout the commit without creating a local branch:
$ git checkout FETCH_HEAD
-
Or, one may cherry-pick the commits to minimize rebuild time:
$ git cherry-pick ..FETCH_HEAD
Robot Reviews
The "Kitware Robot" automatically performs basic checks on the commits and adds a comment acknowledging or rejecting the topic. This will be repeated automatically whenever the topic is updated. A re-check may be explicitly requested by adding a comment with a single trailing line:
Do: check
A topic cannot be merged until the automatic review succeeds.
Testing
VTK-m has a buildbot instance watching for merge requests to test. Each time a merge request is updated the buildbot user (@buildbot) will automatically trigger a new build on all VTK-m buildbot workers. The buildbot user (@buildbot) will respond with a comment linking to the CDash results when it schedules builds.
The buildbot user (@buildbot) will also respond to any comment with the form:
Do: test
The Do: test
command accepts the following arguments:
--oneshot
only build the current hash of the branch; updates will not be built using this command--stop
clear the list of commands for the merge request--superbuild
build the superbuilds related to the project--clear
clear previous commands before adding this command--regex-include <arg>
or-i <arg>
only build on builders matching<arg>
(a Python regular expression)--regex-exclude <arg>
or-e <arg>
excludes builds on builders matching<arg>
(a Python regular expression)
Multiple Do: test
commands may be given in separate comments. Buildbot
may skip tests for older branch updates that have not started before a test
for a new update is requested.
Build names always follow this pattern:
SHA-build#-[os-libtype-buildtype+feature1+feature2]-topic
- SHA: The shortened 8-digit SHA identifying the git commit being tested
- build:
build####
with####
replaced by a unique number for the build - os: one of
windows
,osx
, orlinux
- libtype:
shared
orstatic
- buildtype:
release
ordebug
- feature: alphabetical list of features enabled for the build
- topic: the git topic branch being tested
Reformat a Topic
The "Kitware Robot" automatically performs basic code formatting on the commits and adds a comment acknowledging or rejecting a merge request based on the format. You may request "Kitware Robot" to automatically reformat the remote copy of your branch by issuing the following command in a merge request page comment:
Do: reformat
This reformatting of the topic rewrites the commits to fix the formatting errors, and causes the version on the developers machine to differ from version on the gitlab server. To resolve this issue you must update the local version to match the reformatted one on the server if you wish to extend or revise the topic.
-
Checkout the topic if it is not your current branch: $ git checkout my-topic
-
Get the new version from gitlab
$ git gitlab-sync -f
If you do not wish to have the "Kitware Robot" automatically reformat your branch you can do so manually by running clang-format manually on each commit of your branch. This must be done by revising each commit not as new commits onto the end of the branch.
Revise a Topic
Revising a topic is a special way to modify the commits within a topic. Normally during a review of a merge request a developer will resolve issues brought up during review by adding more commits to the topic. While this is sufficient for most issues, some issues can only be resolved by rewriting the history of the topic.
If a reviewer has asked explicitly for certain commits to be rewritten, you will need to revise the commits and force push it back to GitLab for another review. To revise a topic for another review as follows:
-
Checkout the topic if it is not your current branch:
$ git checkout my-topic
-
To revise the
3
rd commit back on the topic:$ git rebase -i HEAD~3
(Substitute the correct number of commits back, as low as
1
.) Follow Git's interactive instructions. -
Push commits in your topic branch to your fork in GitLab:
$ git gitlab-push -f
Notes:
- You need to add
-f
or--force
to overwrite the destination as you are revising a previously pushed topic and have rewritten the topic history.
- You need to add
Merge a Topic
After a topic has been reviewed and approved in a GitLab Merge Request, authorized developers may add a comment with a single trailing line:
Do: merge
to ask that the change be merged into the upstream repository. By
convention, only merge if you have received +1
. Do not request a merge
if any -1
review comments have not been resolved.
Merge Success
If the merge succeeds the topic will appear in the upstream repository
master
branch and the Merge Request will be closed automatically.
Merge Failure
If the merge fails (likely due to a conflict), a comment will be added describing the failure. In the case of a conflict, fetch the latest upstream history and rebase on it:
$ git fetch origin
$ git rebase origin/master
Return to the above step to share the revised topic.