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Contributing to Git Large File Storage

Hi there! We're thrilled that you'd like to contribute to this project. Your help is essential for making it the best it can be.

Contributions to this project are released to the public under the project's open source license.

This project adheres to the Open Code of Conduct. By participating, you are expected to uphold this code.

Feature Requests

Feature requests are welcome, but will have a much better chance of being accepted if they meet the first principles for the project. Git LFS is intended for end users, not Git experts. It should fit into the standard workflow as much as possible, and require little client configuration.

  • Large objects are pushed to Git LFS servers during git push.
  • Large objects are downloaded during git checkout.
  • Git LFS servers are linked to Git remotes by default. Git hosts can support users without requiring them to set up anything extra. Users can access different Git LFS servers like they can with different Git remotes.
  • Upload and download requests should use the same form of authentication built into Git: SSH through public keys, and HTTPS through Git credential helpers.
  • Git LFS servers use a JSON API designed around progressive enhancement. Servers can simply host off cloud storage, or implement more efficient methods of transferring data.

Since the focus for the project is on end users, we're generally hesitant about introducing new features that make data loss easy or are prone to misuse. However, we're not necessarily opposed to adding generally applicable customizability or features for advanced users if they don't conflict with other project goals.

Project Management

The Git LFS project is managed completely through this open source project. The milestones show the high level items that are prioritized for future work. Suggestions for major features should be submitted as a pull request that adds a markdown file to docs/proposals discussing the feature. This gives the community time to discuss it before a lot of code has been written.

The Git LFS teams mark issues and pull requests with the following labels:

  • bug - An issue describing a bug.
  • enhancement - An issue for a possible new feature.
  • review - A pull request ready to be reviewed.
  • release - A checklist issue showing items marked for an upcoming release.

Branching strategy

In general, contributors should develop on branches based off of main and pull requests should be to main.

Submitting a pull request

  1. Fork and clone the repository
  2. Configure and install the dependencies: make
  3. Make sure the tests pass on your machine: make test
  4. Create a new branch based on main: git checkout -b <my-branch-name> main
  5. Make your change, add tests, and make sure the tests still pass
  6. Push to your fork and submit a pull request from your branch to main
  7. Pat yourself on the back and wait for your pull request to be reviewed

Here are a few things you can do that will increase the likelihood of your pull request being accepted:

  • Follow the style guide where possible.
  • Write tests.
  • Update documentation as necessary. Commands have man pages.
  • Keep your change as focused as possible. If there are multiple changes you would like to make that are not dependent upon each other, consider submitting them as separate pull requests.
  • Write a good commit message.
  • Explain the rationale for your change in the pull request. You can often use part of a good commit message as a starting point.

Discussions

Our discussions are the perfect place to ask a question if you're not sure on something, provide feedback that isn't a bug report or feature request, or learn about use cases or best practices with Git LFS. There's even a search box to help you see if someone has already answered your question!

You can also check the FAQ to see if your question is well known and already has an easy answer.

Issues

If you think you've found a bug or have an issue, we'd love to hear about it! Here are some tips for getting your question answered as quickly as possible:

  • It's helpful if your issue includes the output of git lfs env, plus any relevant information about platform or configuration (e.g., container or CI usage, Cygwin, WSL, or non-Basic authentication).
  • Take a look at the troubleshooting and FAQ pages on the wiki. We update them from time to time with information on how to track down problems. If it seems relevant, include any information you've learned by following those steps.
  • If you're having problems with GitHub's server-side LFS support, it's best to reach out to GitHub's support team to get help. We aren't able to address GitHub-specific issues in this project, but the GitHub support team will do their best to help you out.
  • If you see an old issue that's closed as fixed, but you're still experiencing the problem on your system, please open a new issue. The problem you're seeing is likely different, at least in the way it works internally, and we can help best when we have a new issue with all the information.

Building

Prerequisites

Git LFS depends on having a working Go development environment. We officially support the latest version of Go, although we try not to break backwards compatibility with older versions if it's possible to avoid doing so.

On RHEL etc. e.g. Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 7.2 (Maipo), you will need the minimum packages installed to build Git LFS:

$ sudo yum install gcc
$ sudo yum install perl-Digest-SHA

In order to run the RPM build rpm/build_rpms.bsh you will also need to:

$ sudo yum install ruby-devel

(note on an AWS instance you may first need to sudo yum-config-manager --enable rhui-REGION-rhel-server-optional)

Building Git LFS

The easiest way to download Git LFS for making changes is git clone:

$ git clone git@github.com:git-lfs/git-lfs.git
$ cd git-lfs

From here, run make to build Git LFS in the ./bin directory. Before submitting changes, be sure to run the Go tests and the shell integration tests:

$ make test          # runs just the Go tests
$ cd t && make test  # runs the shell tests in ./test
$ script/cibuild     # runs everything, with verbose debug output

Updating 3rd party packages

  1. Update go.mod.
  2. Run make vendor to update the code in the vendor directory.
  3. Commit the change. Git LFS vendors the full source code in the repository.
  4. Submit a pull request.

Releasing

If you are the current maintainer, see the release howto for how to perform a release.

Resources