budibase/.github/CONTRIBUTING.md

# Contributing

From opening a bug report to creating a pull request: every contribution is appreciated and welcome. If you're planning to implement a new feature or change the api please create an issue first. This way we can ensure that your precious work is not in vain.

### Not Sure Where to Start?

Budibase is a low-code web application builder that creates svelte based web applications.

Budibase is a monorepo managed by [lerna](https://github.com/lerna/lerna). Lerna manages the building and publishing of the budibase packages. At a high level, here are the packages that make up budibase.

- **packages/builder** - contains code for the budibase builder client side svelte application.

- **packages/client** - A module that runs in the browser responsible for reading JSON definition and creating living, breathing web apps from it.

- **packages/server** - The budibase server. This [Koa](https://koajs.com/) app is responsible for serving the JS for the builder and budibase apps, as well as providing the API for interaction with the database and file system.

## Contributor License Agreement (CLA)

In order to accept your pull request, we need you to submit a CLA. You only need to do this once. If you are submitting a pull request for the first time, just submit a Pull Request and our CLA Bot will give you instructions on how to sign the CLA before merging your Pull Request.

All contributors must sign an [Individual Contributor License Agreement](https://github.com/budibase/budibase/blob/next/.github/cla/individual-cla.md).

If contributing on behalf of your company, your company must sign a [Corporate Contributor License Agreement](https://github.com/budibase/budibase/blob/next/.github/cla/corporate-cla.md). If so, please contact us via community@budibase.com.

## Glossary of Terms

To understand the budibase API, it can be helpful to understand the top level entities that make up Budibase.

### Client

A client represents a single budibase customer. Each budibase client will have 1 or more budibase servers. Every client is assigned a unique ID.

### App

A client can have one or more budibase applications. Budibase applications would be things like "Developer Inventory Management" or "Goat Herder CRM". Think of a budibase application as a tree. 

### Database

An App can have one or more databases. Keeping with our [dendrology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrology) analogy - think of an database as a branch on the tree. Databases are used to keep data separate for different instances of your app. For example, if you had a CRM app, you may create a database for your US office, and a database for your Australian office. Databases allow us to support [multitenancy](https://www.gartner.com/en/information-technology/glossary/multitenancy) in budibase applications.

### Table

Tables in budibase are almost akin to tables in relational databases. A table may be a "Car" or an "Employee". They are the main building blocks for the creation and management of backend data in budibase.

### View

A View is an advanced feature in budibase that allows you to write a custom query using [MapReduce](https://pouchdb.com/guides/queries.html) queries. Views enable powerful query functionality and calculations, allowing you to do more with your data.

### Page

A page in budibase is actually a single, self contained svelte web app. There are only 2 pages in budibase. The **login** page and the **main** page.

### Screen

A screen is a component within a single page. Generally, screens represent client side routes, and can be switched without refreshing the page.

### Component

A component is the basic frontend building block of a budibase app.

### Component Library

Component libraries are collections of components as well as the definition of their props contained in a file called `components.json`. 



## Contributing to Budibase

* Please maintain the existing code style. 

* Please try to keep your commits small and focused.

* Please write tests.

* If the project diverges from your branch, please rebase instead of merging. This makes the commit graph easier to read.

* Once your work is completed, please raise a PR against the main branch with some information about what has changed and why.

### Getting Started For Contributors

### 1.  Prerequisites

*yarn -* `npm install -g yarn`

*jest* - `npm install -g jest`

### 2. Clone this repository

`git clone https://github.com/Budibase/budibase.git`

then `cd ` into your local copy.

### 3.  Install and Build

To develop the Budibase platform you'll need [Docker](https://www.docker.com/) and [Docker Compose](https://docs.docker.com/compose/) installed.

#### Quick method

`yarn setup` will check that all necessary components are installed and setup the repo for usage.

#### Manual method

The following commands can be executed to manually get Budibase up and running (assuming Docker/Docker Compose has been installed).

`yarn` to install project dependencies

`yarn bootstrap` will install all budibase modules and symlink them together using lerna.

`yarn build` will build all budibase packages.

### 4. Initialising Budibase and Creating a Budibase App

Starting up the budibase electron app should initialise budibase for you. A Budibase apps folder will have been created in `~/.budibase`.

This is a blank apps folder, so you will need to create yourself an app, you can do this by clicking "Create New App" from the budibase builder.

This will create a new budibase application in the `~/.budibase/<your-app-uuid>` directory, and NPM install the component libraries for that application. Let's start building your app with the budibase builder!

### 4. Running

To run the budibase server and builder in dev mode (i.e. with live reloading):

1. Open a new console
2. `yarn dev` (from root)
3. Access the builder on http://localhost:10000/builder

This will enable watch mode for both the builder app, server, client library and any component libraries.

### 5. Debugging using VS Code

To debug the budibase server and worker a VS Code launch configuration has been provided. 

Visit the debug window and select `Budibase Server` or `Budibase Worker` to debug the respective component. 
Alternatively to start both components simultaneously select `Start Budibase`.

In addition to the above, the remaining budibase components may be ran in dev mode using: `yarn dev:noserver`.

### 6. Cleanup

If you wish to delete all the apps created in development and reset the environment then run the following:

1. `yarn nuke:docker` will wipe all the Budibase services
2. `yarn dev` will restart all the services

## Data Storage

When you are running locally, budibase stores data on disk using [PouchDB](https://pouchdb.com/), as well as some JSON on local files. After setting up budibase, you can find all of this data in the `~/.budibase` directory.

A client can have one or more budibase applications. Budibase applications are stored in `~/.budibase/<app-uuid>`. Files used by your budibase application when running are stored in the `public` directory. Everything else is dev files used for the development of your apps in the builder.

#### Frontend

To see the current individual JSON definitions for your pages and screens used by the builder, have a look at `~/.budibase/<app-uuid>/pages`.

For your actual running application (not in dev), the frontend tree structure of the application (known as `clientFrontendDefinition`) is stored as JSON on disk. This is what the budibase client library reads to create your app at runtime. This can be found at `~/.budibase/<app-uuid>/public/clientFrontendDefinition.js`

The HTML and CSS for your apps runtime pages, as well as the budibase client library JS is stored at:

- `~/.budibase/<app-uuid>/public/main`
- `~/.budibase/<app-uuid>/public/unauthenticated`

#### Backend

For the backend we run [Redis](https://redis.io/), [CouchDB](https://couchdb.apache.org/), [MinIO](https://min.io/) and [Envoy](https://www.envoyproxy.io/) in Docker compose. This means that to develop Budibase you will need Docker and Docker compose installed. The backend services are then ran separately as Node services with nodemon so that they can be debugged outside of Docker.

### Publishing Budibase to NPM

#### Testing In Electron

At budibase, we pride ourselves on giving our users a fast, native and slick local development experience. As a result, we use the electron to provide a native GUI for the budibase builder. In order to release budibase out into the wild, you should test your changes in a packaged electron application. To do this, first build budibase from the root directory. 
```
yarn build
```

Now everything is built, you can package up your electron application.
```
cd packages/server
yarn build:electron
```

Your new electron application will be stored in `packages/server/dist/<operating-system>`. Open up the executable and make sure everything is working smoothly.


#### Publishing to NPM

Once you are happy that your changes work in electron, you can publish all the latest versions of the monorepo packages by running:

```
yarn publishnpm
```

from your root directory.

#### CI Release

After NPM has successfully published the budibase packages, a new tag will be pushed to master. This will kick off a github action (can be found at `.github/workflows/release.yml`) this will build and package the electron application for every OS (Windows, Mac, Linux). The binaries will be stored under the new tag on the [budibase releases page](https://github.com/Budibase/budibase/releases).

### Troubleshooting

Sometimes, things go wrong. This can be due to incompatible updates on the budibase platform. To clear down your development environment and start again: 

```
rm -rf ~/.budibase
```
Follow from **Step 3. Install and Build** in the setup guide above. You should have a fresh Budibase installation.

### Running tests

#### End-to-end Tests

Budibase uses Cypress to run a number of E2E tests. To run the tests execute the following command in the root folder:

```
yarn test:e2e
```

Or if you are in the builder you can run `yarn cy:test`.


### Other Useful Information

* The contributors are listed in [AUTHORS.md](https://github.com/Budibase/budibase/blob/master/.github/AUTHORS.md) (add yourself).

* This project uses a modified version of the MPLv2 license, see [LICENSE](https://github.com/budibase/server/blob/master/LICENSE).

* We use the [C4 (Collective Code Construction Contract)](https://rfc.zeromq.org/spec:42/C4/) process for contributions.
  Please read this if you are unfamiliar with it.