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Contribution guidelines

Community

This section contains information on how to contribute using our docs-as-code approach. You may also be interested in Community Expectations and Hackathons.

How to contribute to docs-as-code as a beginner

Welcome to our introduction on how to contribute to Kong Docs using our docs-as-code approach. This tutorial is designed for first-time contributors who want to get started with simple tasks to boost their confidence in tooling, add to their portfolio, and join our international community.

We house all our docs code on GitHub, a code versioning platform that allows people all over the world to collaborate on projects. You’ll need a GitHub account, so if you don’t already have one, now’s the time to sign up.

Once you have a GitHub account, head over to our docs.konghq.com project.

The first thing we’re going to do is look over the README. Read through the intro section for some basic information about our project.

Basic setup

To contribute using our docs-as-code approach, you’ll need:

  • A code editor like VScode or Atom.
  • Basic Git knowledge, see Git/GitHub Resources.
  • A fork of our repository, and our repository configured as an upstream to your fork. On our main repository page, click the Fork button in the top right. Learn more about working with forks on GitHub.
  • To know the difference between a PR and an Issue. PR stands for Pull Request or Please Review. It’s different from an Issue in that an Issue is a statement of something that needs attention, while a PR attempts to resolve something. So, an Issue is an idea and a PR is an action.

From here, determine which applies to you:

I know what I want to contribute

Great! Let’s first check to see if someone had the same idea as you. Go to Issues and read through the titles to see if something sounds similar to what you want to contribute or fix.

If you find an Issue that aligns with what you want to contribute, go ahead and add a comment stating that you’re going to be working on this task. We don’t assign Issues. Then, head to Make your contribution.

If you don’t find an Issue that aligns with what you want to contribute, there’s no need to open one up. Instead, go to Make your contribution.

I need ideas on what to contribute

Go to Issues and read through the titles to see if something catches your eye. If you don’t find anything of your interest there, explore the following:

  • Find a product or area of interest in our current docs.
  • Audit a page and determine if it aligns with our Style Guide.

Make your contribution

Once you’ve identified what you want to work on, let’s get to writing! You can either use the Edit this page feature on Github or make your changes locally.

Use the Edit this page option

Use this method if you are making minor edits to a single file.

  1. On any text documentation page, you will see an Edit this page link in the right sidebar. Click it and you’ll be taken to the GitHub editor.

  2. Make your changes in the GitHub editor.

  3. When you’re finished, scroll to the bottom of the page. Enter the requested information and click Propose changes.

Make your changes locally

Use this method if you are very comfortable with Git, are making a code change, or are planning to make changes across multiple files.

  1. Work on your fork of our docs repository. Since you’re working from a fork, it’s not uncommon to work off the main branch.

  2. Locate the file(s) you want to modify and make your edits.

  3. Add, commit, and push your work to your fork.

    a. git add . to add all work, or git add {FILE_NAME} to add a single file

    b. git commit -m "{DETAILED_COMMIT_MESSAGE}"

    c. git push origin main (If you are working off a branch of your fork, replace main with your branch name.)

  4. Create a pull request from your fork.

  5. Fill out the PR with a title (initially populated by your latest commit message), and all form details. The more thorough and clear you are, the easier it is for us to understand the change and why it’s been made.

  6. Submit your PR!

We encourage you to explore the README more, read through our contributing guidelines, and also try out setting up your project locally (via instructions in our README). We appreciate your interest and involvement and are looking forward to seeing your future contributions!