Contributing to Agenta

Thanks for your interest in contributing to Agenta! We appreciate your effort and aim to make your contribution experience as straightforward as possible.

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Getting Started

1. Local Installation: First, set up the project on your local machine. Follow the steps in our Local Installation Guide.

2. Understand the Project: Familiarize yourself with our architecture and concepts by reading our Conceptual Guide and Architecture Guide.

3. Begin Development: Once you’ve installed the project and understand its architecture, you’re ready to contribute. See the Development Mode Tutorial for instructions on running the code in development mode.

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Code Formatting and Linting

To maintain code quality, we adhere to certain formatting and linting rules:

• Backend & CLI Formatting with Black: Use black for formatting code in the following directories:

  • agenta-backend/**
  • agenta-cli/**
  • examples/**

  Install black with pip install black, navigate to the target directory, and run black ..

• Frontend Formatting with Prettier: We use prettier for frontend formatting. Run npm run format-fix in the agenta-web directory. If you haven’t yet installed prettier, do so with npm install prettier.

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Contribution Steps

1. Pick an Issue: Start by selecting an issue from our issue tracker. Choose one that matches your skill set and begin coding. For more on this, read our Creating an Issue Guide.

2. Fork & Pull Request: Fork our repository, create a new branch, add your changes, and submit a pull request. Ensure your code aligns with our standards and includes appropriate unit tests.

3. Contribute a Larger Feature: If you’re interested in developing a more extensive feature, let’s discuss! Contact us directly on Slack or schedule a meeting through this Calendly link.

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Contribution Rules

We had many zombie issues and PRs (assigned but inactive) in the past. We want to avoid this in the future, so we’ve set up the following rules:

• An issue may only be assigned to one person for up to one week (three days for very simple issues). If the issue remains unsolved after a week, it will be unassigned and made available to others.
• Any pull request (PR) left inactive by the author for over a week will be closed. The author can reopen it if they wish to continue.

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Running the Backend Tests

It is important that you run your tests locally and make sure they pass before you make a pull request. Here is how to do it:

1. Start the agenta platform locally by running docker compose -f "docker-compose.yml" up -d --build
2. To interact with the backend container in a shell, run docker exec -it agenta-backend-1 sh
3. Run pytest to run the tests

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Running the Frontend Tests

Before submitting a pull request, it is important that you run your frontend tests to ensure your changes do not introduce new issues. This section guides you through the process.

1. Open a terminal or command prompt
2. Start the agenta platform locally by running docker compose -f "docker-compose.yml" up -d --build
3. Update the .env.local file with your OpenAI API Key: To use your OpenAI API Key in the tests, you need to update the .env.local file with the key. Follow these steps:

• Open the .env.local file located at /agenta/agenta-web/.env.local in your code editor
• Add your OpenAI API Key using the variable NEXT_PUBLIC_OPENAI_API_KEY
• Save the .env.local file after adding the key

4. Navigate to the frontend directory of the project cd agenta-web
5. Run npm run test to run the frontend tests

We look forward to seeing your contributions to Agenta!