Contributing to Dendros

April 12, 2026 · View on GitHub

Thank you for your interest in contributing to Dendros! We welcome bug reports, feature requests, documentation improvements, and code contributions.

Table of Contents

  1. Development environment setup
  2. Running tests
  3. Formatting and linting
  4. Proposing changes

Development environment setup

  1. Fork and clone the repository:

    git clone https://github.com/<your-username>/dendros.git
cd dendros

  2. Create a virtual environment (Python ≥ 3.8):

    python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate   # Windows: .venv\Scripts\activate

  3. Install the package in editable mode with development extras:

    pip install -e ".[dev,pandas,docs]"

    This installs:

    • dendros itself (editable)
    • pytest and pytest-cov for testing
    • pandas for optional table output
    • sphinx, sphinx-rtd-theme, myst-parser, nbsphinx for docs

Running tests

pytest

To also measure code coverage:

pytest --cov=dendros --cov-report=term-missing

Tests live in the tests/ directory and use small synthetic HDF5 files generated in temporary directories – no real Galacticus output data is needed.

Formatting and linting

We follow standard Python style guidelines (PEP 8). We recommend using black for auto-formatting and ruff for linting:

pip install black ruff
black src/ tests/
ruff check src/ tests/

Type annotations are encouraged throughout the codebase.

Building the documentation

cd docs
make html
# open _build/html/index.html in your browser

Proposing changes

  1. Open an issue first to discuss the change you would like to make, especially for larger features or breaking API changes.

  2. Create a branch from main:

    git checkout -b feature/your-feature-name

  3. Implement your changes, adding or updating tests as needed.

  4. Run the test suite to make sure everything passes:

    pytest

  5. Open a pull request against galacticusorg/dendros:main. Describe what changed and why; link the relevant issue if one exists.

  6. A maintainer will review the PR. Please be responsive to feedback – we aim to keep the review cycle short.

Code of Conduct

Please be respectful and constructive in all interactions. We follow the Contributor Covenant code of conduct.