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Create org-modified unified contributing guide and related coding standards #186
Description
Description
We have many places for this like in:
- https://scancodeio.readthedocs.io/en/latest/contributing.html
- See https://github.com/search?q=org%3Aaboutcode-org+contributing+language%3AreStructuredText&type=code&l=reStructuredText
We need to have a single org-wide document that unifies all these practices with a single set of documentation.
Some other recommendations to add:
- small, focused PRs
- adopting existing code style in a repo
- avoiding the introduction of new dependencies unless absolutely needed
The goal is to start with python-inspector as a base repo to refine this.
Also to consider is how to update tools used across repos for this, like black vs. ruff and use the skeleton for this or scripts.
Activity
[-]Create org-modified unified contributing guide and related coding standard[/-][+]Create org-modified unified contributing guide and related coding standards[/+]mjherzog commentedon Mar 27, 2025
see also #148
Bring over contributing.rst from scancode.io #186
vaibhav11123 commentedon Dec 4, 2025
Hey @pombredanne , @JonoYang , @TG1999 , @mjherzog I’ve put together a first draft of the unified contributing guide based on the points discussed here and the patterns across scancode.io / python-inspector / vulnerablecode etc.
Here’s the draft:
(https://docs.google.com/document/d/12hozVcqZNYeHiXSfGdeLbr5GBJOQeZJBkJCamqnCfSA/edit?usp=sharing)
It basically pulls everything into one place (DCO, pre-commit setup, Ruff, branch naming, dependency rules, PR checklist, etc.) and tries to standardize the flow across repos so we don’t have conflicting docs/tooling anymore.
Would love feedback on:
• anything I should remove/simplify
• anything missing from the current org practices
• whether this structure makes sense before I open the PR
Happy to revise based on whatever direction you prefer.
Drafting Unified Contribution Guide.pdf
Add unified CONTRIBUTING.md draft (Issue aboutcode-org#186)
Add full CONTRIBUTING.md content (Issue aboutcode-org#186)
Add unified contributing proposal document (Issue aboutcode-org#186)
Add full content to unified contributing proposal document (Issue abo…
mjherzog commentedon Jan 12, 2026
@pombredanne @AyanSinhaMahapatra We also need a standard for project-specific information that is currently in some CONTRIBUTING.rst files. A key example is https://github.com/aboutcode-org/scancode-toolkit/blob/develop/CONTRIBUTING.rst which provides details for how to install and configure the toolkit for development. These instructions should probably be separate - perhaps in a new README-dev.rst file that can be referenced from CONTRIBUTING.rst generically: "Please see README-dev.rst for details about how to set up a development environment to work on a project".
pombredanne commentedon Jan 13, 2026
@vaibhav11123 This looks to me as AI generated? If so please tell how, which AI and disclose the prompts. This also looks way too verbose for my taste, and that's the first time I see a conclusion to a guide.... another sign this was AI-generated.
If you really want to help, do the work yourself, not with an AI ;) .... we can use AI ourselves and would not need help for that.
Your first step should be to inventory the different docs and list the key elements we want to have and propose these in comments here.
Note that this will need to include an AI policy similar to https://nlnet.nl/foundation/policies/generativeAI/