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](https://github.com/Budibase/budibase/issues/new/choose) first. This way we can ensure that your precious work is not in vain.
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.
- **packages/worker** - This [Koa](https://koajs.com/) app is responsible for providing global apis for managing your budibase installation. Authentication, Users, Email, Org and Auth configs are all provided by the worker.
## 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.
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 hada 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 `develop` branch with some information about what has changed and why.
For the backend we run [Redis](https://redis.io/), [CouchDB](https://couchdb.apache.org/), [MinIO](https://min.io/) and [NGINX](https://www.nginx.com/) in Docker compose. This means that to develop Budibase you will need Docker and Docker compose installed. The backend services are then run separately as Node services with nodemon so that they can be debugged outside of Docker.
@budibase/pro is the closed source package that supports licensed features in budibase. By default the package will be pulled from NPM and will not normally need to be touched in local development. If you require to update code inside the pro package it can be cloned to the same root level as budibase, e.g.
```
.
|_ budibase
|_ budibase-pro
```
Note that only budibase maintainers will be able to access the pro repo.
The `yarn bootstrap` command can be used to replace the NPM supplied dependency with the local source aware version. This is achieved using the `yarn link` command. To see specifically how dependencies are linked see [scripts/link-dependencies.sh](../scripts/link-dependencies.sh). The same link script is used to link dependencies to account-portal in local dev.
Sometimes, things go wrong. This can be due to incompatible updates on the budibase platform. To clear down your development environment and start again follow **Step 6. Cleanup**, then proceed from **Step 3. Install and Build** in the setup guide above to create a fresh Budibase installation.
