Contribution guide

Information on how to make contributions to the tsfpga project.

Setting up development environment

For tsfpga development we have a lot more python dependencies than when simply using the package. Install further dependencies with:

python -m pip install --upgrade --requirement requirements_develop.txt

You also need VUnit installed somewhere where python can find it.

Maintaining changelog

We maintain a changelog according to the keep a changelog format. The unreleased changelog in doc/release_notes/unreleased.rst shall be updated continuously, not just at release. Release note files are in the rst format, inspect older release note files to see the formatting details.

How to build documentation

Documentation is built using the tools/build_sphinx_docs.py script. The documentation pages have information about unit test code coverage. So before building documentation you must run pytest with coverage reports enabled like in CI:

python -m pytest -v --cov tsfpga --cov-report xml:generated/python_coverage.xml --cov-report html:generated/python_coverage_html tsfpga

You must also run simulate.py with GHDL and the GCC backend, which supports coverage, before building the documentation. No extra flags are needed, the script will generate coverage when possible in the correct location.

If want to skip handling of coverage for the documentation there is a flag available in the script, see build_sphinx_doc.py --help.

How to make a new release

Releases are made to the Python Packaging Index (PyPI) and can be installed with the python pip tool. To make a new release follow these steps.

Test CI pipeline

Before doing anything, launch a CI run from master to see that everything works as expected. The CI environment is stable but due to things like, e.g., new pylint version it can unexpectedly break. When the pipeline has finished and is green you can move on to the next step.

Determine new version number

We use the Semantic Versioning scheme for tsfpga. Read the Summary at the top of that page and decide the new version number accordingly.

Review the release notes

Check the release notes file unreleased.rst. Fill in anything that is missing according to Maintaining changelog.

Run release script

Run the script

python3 tools/release.py X.Y.Z

where X.Y.Z is your new version number. The script will bump the tsfpga version number and copy release notes to a new file. The changes will be commited and then tagged.

Push commit and tag

git push origin --tag vX.Y.Z HEAD:release_branch

Pushing a tag will create a special CI run in gitlab:

The pipeline for the tag will run an additional job deploy_pypi:

The package is uploaded to https://pypi.org/project/tsfpga/. If you really want to make sure that everything has worked you can check there and see that your new release is available.

Merge

If everything went well then you can merge your release commit to master.