Contributing

How to contribute to Alvo, rendered from CONTRIBUTING.md.

Thanks for your interest in Alvo — a .NET-native Backend-as-a-Service. This guide covers how to build, test, and submit changes, and explains the Contributor License Agreement (CLA) up front and honestly.

If you want the full picture of what Alvo is and where it’s going, the product specs live in docs/product/ and architecture notes in docs/.

Building & testing

Build the whole solution: dotnet build (MMLib.Alvo.slnx)
Run all tests: dotnet test

Tests run on Microsoft.Testing.Platform (MTP), not VSTest — this is selected via the test section in global.json, so dotnet test does the right thing without extra flags. The target framework is net10.0; the exact SDK is pinned in global.json, so install that SDK (or a compatible patch release) and the build is reproducible.

Coding conventions

The project’s coding conventions — the “why, not what” comment policy, the XML-doc requirement on public API, Central Package Management, and which packages are off-limits for licensing reasons — are defined once, authoritatively, in CLAUDE.md. That file is the single source of truth for style; please read its Conventions and Code style sections before opening a pull request.

In short:

Comments say why, not what. Prefer self-documenting code — a well-named method or variable — over prose that narrates the logic.
Public API members of shipped libraries carry XML doc comments (/// <summary>).
Central Package Management: versions live in Directory.Packages.props; PackageReference entries carry no Version.
Not permitted (licensing): MediatR, FluentAssertions v8+. Use Shouldly for assertions.

Pull request process

Never push directly to main. It’s forbidden — every change lands via a reviewed pull request.
Branch off main, make your change, and keep the diff focused on one concern.
Push your branch and open a pull request against main.
CI (build + test) runs on every pull request and must pass before merge.
Sign the CLA when the bot asks (see below) — this happens automatically on your first PR.

Contributor License Agreement (CLA)

Alvo’s core is, and will remain, licensed under Apache-2.0 — that will not change.

Contributions require signing a lightweight CLA. This is not about taking anything away from you. It exists so the maintainer can fund the project’s future through optional commercial add-ons (for example, Alvo.Enterprise.* packages) without ever having to track down and re-clear permission from every past contributor. A project that skips this step from the start can find itself unable to evolve its licensing later — we’re avoiding that trap deliberately, on day one.

Two things worth being clear about:

You keep full copyright over your contribution. The CLA grants a license; it does not transfer ownership to the maintainer.
The license you grant is broad — broad enough to allow the maintainer to license the combined work beyond Apache-2.0 in the future. That breadth is the whole point, and we’d rather say so plainly than bury it.

The exact terms are the well-established Project Harmony CLA templates (v1.0, “any licence” variant) — not a bespoke document — adapted only to name the project, the signing method, and the governing law:

Individual contributors: docs/legal/CLA-INDIVIDUAL.md
Contributing on behalf of an employer: docs/legal/CLA-CORPORATE.md

Signing is automatic and one-time. The CLA Assistant bot comments on your first pull request and asks you to accept via your GitHub identity. Once you’ve signed, every subsequent PR is cleared automatically — you won’t be asked again unless the agreement itself changes.

Code of Conduct

This project follows the Contributor Covenant. By participating, you agree to uphold it. Please read CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md.

This page is generated from CONTRIBUTING.md.