Linter should report nothing (at this point)
June 22, 2026 · View on GitHub
Contributing to Netmiko
In order to contribute to Netmiko without having to be directly added as a contributor to this project it is best to follow the well known forking strategy. Follow the steps below to fork Netmiko and contribute back to the project from your personal fork.
Navigate and Fork Netmiko Repository
Navigate to the Netmiko project on GitHub. Once you're on the main repository page click on the fork button.
You'll then be brought to a screen to complete the fork into your personal user repository.
You'll finally be redirected to your fork of Netmiko, which is linked to the parent Netmiko repository.
Clone the Netmiko repository
Next you'll need to clone your forked repository.
▶ git clone git@github.com:<gituser>/netmiko.git
Cloning into 'netmiko'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 17427, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (753/753), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (417/417), done.
remote: Total 17427 (delta 395), reused 611 (delta 323), pack-reused 16674
Receiving objects: 100% (17427/17427), 7.37 MiB | 8.25 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (11334/11334), done.
Once your forked repository is cloned you can change into the netmiko directory.
cd netmiko
Finally you can check the status of git.
git status
Git Status should look similar to the following:
$ git status
On branch develop
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/develop'.
nothing to commit, working tree clean
Install uv
uv is used to manage the dependencies needed for the Netmiko development environment.
# Verify uv is installed and in your $PATH
$ uv --version
uv 0.x.y
Use uv to install Netmiko dependencies
This will also create a virtual environment located in .venv.
# From the base of the Netmiko repository (the directory should contain the pyproject.toml file).
$ uv sync
<"Installing x"...>
Activate virtual environment that has all the needed dependencies:
source .venv/bin/activate
Test your environment is working right:
# Should report all files as 'unchanged'
$ uv run --frozen ruff format --check .
323 files already formatted
# Linter should report nothing (at this point)
$ uv run --frozen ruff check .
All checks passed!
# Type hints should be happy 😃
$ uv run --frozen mypy netmiko/
Success: no issues found in 194 source files
Unit tests should pass (once again we are testing on unchanged 'develop' branch at this point so everything should pass)
$ uv run --frozen pytest tests/unit
============================= test session starts ==============================
platform linux -- Python 3.13.12, pytest-8.3.3, pluggy-1.6.0
rootdir: /home/ktbyers/netmiko
configfile: pyproject.toml
collected 89 items
tests/unit/test_base_connection.py ........................ [ 41%]
tests/unit/test_connection.py .... [ 48%]
tests/unit/test_entry_points.py . [ 50%]
tests/unit/test_ssh_autodetect.py . [ 51%]
tests/unit/test_utilities.py ............................ [100%]
============================== 89 passed in 6.41s ==============================
Create a branch for your work:
$ git checkout -b my_cool_work origin/develop
branch 'my_cool_work' set up to track 'origin/develop'.
Switched to a new branch 'my_cool_work'
Make your changes pass the linters and tests.
At the end of your changes the linters and unit tests MUST all pass.
cd {{ repo_base }}
# Use 'ruff format' to autoformat the code
uv run --frozen ruff format .
# Fix any linting errors
uv run --frozen ruff check .
# Type hints (if you struggle with this, submit PR and ask for assistance)
uv run --frozen mypy netmiko/
# Unit tests
$ uv run --frozen pytest tests/unit/
Submit your PR to the Netmiko repository.
Place a clear statement regarding the purpose of the PR (bug it is fixing, feature it is adding).
For any more meaningful feature, you should open a GitHub issue or discussion first and make sure that we agree on implementing this feature.
The PR will be sourced from your forked repository + the forked repository branch in use, with the destination of Netmiko's develop branch.
