-# Contributing

-

-Contributors are very welcome! **No contribution is too small and all contributions are valued.**

-

-Some suggestions to get started:

-

-- You can look at the [good first issue][good-first-issue] label on the issue tracker.

-- Help with packaging on various distributions needed!

-- To use print debugging to the [Helix log file][log-file], you must:

- * Print using `log::info!`, `warn!`, or `error!`. (`log::info!("helix!")`)

- * Pass the appropriate verbosity level option for the desired log level. (`hx -v <file>` for info, more `v`s for higher verbosity)

- * Want to display the logs in a separate file instead of using the `:log-open` command in your compiled Helix editor? Start your debug version with `cargo run -- --log foo.log` and in a new terminal use `tail -f foo.log`

-- Instead of running a release version of Helix, while developing you may want to run in debug mode with `cargo run` which is way faster to compile

-- Looking for even faster compile times? Give a try to [mold](https://github.com/rui314/mold)

-- If your preferred language is missing, integrating a tree-sitter grammar for

- it and defining syntax highlight queries for it is straightforward and

- doesn't require much knowledge of the internals.

-- If you don't use the Nix development shell and are getting your rust-analyzer binary from rustup, you may need to run `rustup component add rust-analyzer`.

- This is because `rust-toolchain.toml` selects our MSRV for the development toolchain but doesn't download the matching rust-analyzer automatically.

-

-We provide an [architecture.md][architecture.md] that should give you

-a good overview of the internals.

-

-# Auto generated documentation

-

-Some parts of [the book][docs] are autogenerated from the code itself,

-like the list of `:commands` and supported languages. To generate these

-files, run

-

-```shell

-cargo xtask docgen

-```

-

-inside the project. We use [xtask][xtask] as an ad-hoc task runner.

-

-To preview the book itself, install [mdbook][mdbook]. Then, run

-

-```shell

-mdbook serve book

-```

-

-and visit [http://localhost:3000](http://localhost:3000).

-

-# Testing

-

-## Unit tests/Documentation tests

-

-Run `cargo test --workspace` to run unit tests and documentation tests in all packages.

-

-## Integration tests

-

-Integration tests for helix-term can be run with `cargo integration-test`. Code

-contributors are strongly encouraged to write integration tests for their code.

-Existing tests can be used as examples. Helpers can be found in

-[helpers.rs][helpers.rs]. The log level can be set with the `HELIX_LOG_LEVEL`

-environment variable, e.g. `HELIX_LOG_LEVEL=debug cargo integration-test`.

-

-Contributors using MacOS might encounter `Too many open files (os error 24)`

-failures while running integration tests. This can be resolved by increasing

-the default value (e.g. to `10240` from `256`) by running `ulimit -n 10240`.

-

-## Minimum Stable Rust Version (MSRV) Policy

-

-Helix keeps an intentionally low MSRV for the sake of easy building and packaging

-downstream. We follow [Firefox's MSRV policy]. Once Firefox's MSRV increases we

-may bump ours as well, but be sure to check that popular distributions like Ubuntu

-package the new MSRV version. When increasing the MSRV, update these three places:

-

-* the `workspace.package.rust-version` key in `Cargo.toml` in the repository root

-* the `env.MSRV` key at the top of `.github/workflows/build.yml`

-* the `toolchain.channel` key in `rust-toolchain.toml`

-

-[Firefox's MSRV policy]: https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/writing-rust-code/update-policy.html

-[good-first-issue]: https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/labels/E-easy

-[log-file]: https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/wiki/FAQ#access-the-log-file

-[architecture.md]: ./architecture.md

-[docs]: https://docs.helix-editor.com/

-[xtask]: https://github.com/matklad/cargo-xtask

-[mdbook]: https://rust-lang.github.io/mdBook/guide/installation.html

-[helpers.rs]: ../helix-term/tests/test/helpers.rs