Contributing

June 1, 2026 ยท View on GitHub

Contributions are welcome, and they are greatly appreciated! Every little bit helps, and credit will always be given.

You can contribute in many ways:

Types of Contributions

Report Bugs

Report bugs at https://github.com/supercowpowers/zat/issues.

If you are reporting a bug, please include:

  • Your operating system name and version.
  • Any details about your local setup that might be helpful in troubleshooting.
  • Detailed steps to reproduce the bug.

Fix Bugs

Look through the GitHub issues for bugs. Anything tagged with "bug" is open to whoever wants to implement it.

Implement Features

Look through the GitHub issues for features. Anything tagged with "feature" is open to whoever wants to implement it.

Write Documentation

Zeek Python Utilities could always use more documentation, whether as part of the official Zeek Python Utilities docs, in docstrings, or even on the web in blog posts, articles, and such.

Submit Feedback

The best way to send feedback is to file an issue at https://github.com/supercowpowers/zat/issues.

If you are proposing a feature:

  • Explain in detail how it would work.
  • Keep the scope as narrow as possible, to make it easier to implement.
  • Remember that this is a volunteer-driven project, and that contributions are welcome :)

Get Started!

Ready to contribute? Here's how to set up zat for local development.

  1. Fork the zat repo on GitHub.

  2. Clone your fork locally:

    $ git clone git@github.com:your_name_here/zat.git

  3. Create a branch for local development:

    $ git checkout -b name-of-your-bugfix-or-feature

Now you can make your changes locally.

  1. When you're done making changes, check that your changes pass style and unit tests, including testing other Python versions with tox:

    $ tox

To get tox, just pip install it.

  1. Commit your changes and push your branch to GitHub:

    $ git add .
$ git commit -m "Your detailed description of your changes."
$ git push origin name-of-your-bugfix-or-feature

  2. Submit a pull request through the GitHub website.

Pull Request Guidelines

Before you submit a pull request, check that it meets these guidelines:

  1. The pull request should include tests.
  2. If the pull request adds functionality, the docs should be updated. Put your new functionality into a function with a docstring, and add the feature to the list in README.md.
  3. The pull request should work for Python 3.10+. Run tox and make sure that the tests pass for all supported Python versions.

Automated & AI-assisted Contributions

We welcome AI-assisted work, but to keep reviews productive we ask a few things:

  • Open an issue first for anything non-trivial, and link it from your PR. This lets us agree the change is a good fit before you invest time writing it. PRs without a linked issue may be closed without a full review.
  • Please disclose if a PR was largely automated or AI-generated.
  • Keep it to a few open PRs at a time. Once those are reviewed and merged, send a few more. We'd rather go deep on a handful of solid changes than skim a large batch.
  • Make sure it runs. Confirm tox passes locally before opening the PR.

Tips

To run a subset of tests:

$ pytest zat