Contributing guidelines

Thanks for taking the time to contribute!

This project is simpler than most, so it’s a good place to start contributing to the open source community, even if you’re a newbie.

We are accepting these sorts of changes and requests:

Bug reports and fixes
Usability improvements
Documentation updates
New reputable “by the book” indicators and overlays

We are not accepting things that should be done in your own wrapper code:

Personal customizations and preferences
Modified or augmented outputs that are not intrinsic

If you have general interest in contributing, but are not sure where to start, please contact us and we can help to find work in an area of interest.

Reporting bugs and feature requests

If you suspect a problem, please report a bug Issue with a detailed description of the problem, steps to reproduce, code samples, and any reference materials. For enhancements, create a feature Issue.

Use the Discussions area for general ideation and help/usage questions.

Project management

Planned work is managed in the backlog.
Work items are primarily entered as Notes (not Issues), except where an issue or feature is user reported. With that said, Notes can be converted to Issues if in-progress and collaborative discussion is needed.

Developing

Read this first: A Step by Step Guide to Making Your First GitHub Contribution. I also have a discussion on Forking if you have questions.
If you want to work on something specific, please mention your intention on the related Issue. If an Issue does not exist for your contribution, please create one before starting. This will help us reserve that feature and avoid duplicative efforts.
If you are adding a new indicator, the easiest way to do this is to copy the folder of an existing indicator and rename everything using the same naming conventions and taxonomy. All new indicators should include tests.
Do not commingle multiple contributions on different topics. Please keep changes small and separate.

Testing

Review the tests/indicators folder for examples of unit tests. Just copy one of these.
New indicators should be tested against manually calculated, proven, accurate results. It is helpful to include your manual calculations spreadsheet in the appropriate indicator test folder when submitting changes.
Historical Stock Quotes are automatically added to unit test methods. A Data.Quotes.xlsx Excel file is included in the tests/_common folder that is an exact copy of what is used in the unit tests. Use a copy of this file for your manual calculations to ensure that it is correct. Do not commit changes to the original file.
We expect all unit tests to execute successfully and all Errors and Warning resolved before you submit your code.
Failed builds or unit testing will block acceptance of your Pull Request when submitting changes.

Performance benchmarking

Running the performance benchmark application in Release mode will produce benchmark performance data that we include on our documentation site.

# from /tests/performance folder
# run all performance benchmarks
dotnet run -c Release

# run individual performance benchmark
dotnet run -c Release --filter *.GetAdx

Documentation

This site uses Jekyll construction with Front Matter. Our documentation site code is in the docs folder. Build the site locally to test that it works properly. See Ruby Jekyll documentation for initial setup.

# from /docs folder
bundle install
bundle exec jekyll serve --livereload

The site will be available at http://127.0.0.1:4000.

When adding or updating indicators:

Add or update the /docs/_indicators/ documentation files.
Page image assets go here: /docs/assets/ and can be optimized to webp format using ImageMagick or the cwebp Encoder CLI and a command like cwebp -resize 832 0 -q 100 examples.png -o examples-832.webp

Accessibility testing

use Lighthouse in Chrome, or
build the site locally (see above), then:

# from /docs folder
npx pa11y-ci \
  --yes
  --sitemap http://127.0.0.1:4000/sitemap.xml \
  --config ./.pa11yci

Submitting changes

By submitting changes to this repo you are also acknowledging and agree to the terms in both the Developer Certificate of Origin (DCO) 1.1 and the Apache 2.0 license. These are standard open-source terms and conditions.

When ready, submit a Pull Request with a clear description of what you’ve done and why it’s important.

Pull Request naming convention

Pull Request titles must follow the Conventional Commits format: type: Subject where:

type is one of: feat, fix, docs, style, refactor, perf, test, build, ci, chore, revert (lowercase)
Subject starts with an uppercase letter

Examples: feat: Add RSI indicator, fix: Resolve calculation error in MACD, docs: Update API documentation

Always write a clear log message for your commits. One-line messages are fine for most changes.

After a Pull Request is reviewed, accepted, and [squash] merged to the default branch, we may batch changes before publishing a new package version to the public NuGet repository. Please be patient with turnaround time.

Code reviews and administration

If you want to contribute administratively, do code reviews, or provide general user support, we’re also currently seeking a few core people to help. Please contact us if interested.

Standards and design guidelines

GitHub Copilot and AI development

This repository is optimized for GitHub Copilot and coding agents with:

Custom agent instructions in AGENTS.md files (root and subdirectories) providing repository context, coding patterns, and domain knowledge
Scoped instruction files in .github/instructions/ for targeted guidance by file type and folder
Enhanced VS Code settings in .vscode/settings.json with Copilot-specific configurations for optimal suggestions
Development container in .devcontainer/devcontainer.json for consistent development environment setup
MCP server configurations in .vscode/mcp.json for extended AI tools for developing capabilities with financial mathematics and .NET performance analysis

When using GitHub Copilot:

Follow the established patterns documented in the AGENTS.md files and instruction files
Ensure all financial calculations maintain decimal precision
Include comprehensive unit tests for any new indicators
Validate mathematical accuracy against reference implementations

Versioning

We use GitVersion for automated semantic versioning. Version numbers are automatically generated based on branch names, commit messages, and Git history.

Component	Format	Description
Major	`x.-.-`	Breaking changes. Use `+semver: major` in commit message.
Minor	`-.x.-`	New features, backward compatible. Use `+semver: minor` in commit message.
Patch	`-.-.x`	Bug fixes, documentation. Use `+semver: patch` (or default auto-increment).
Suffix	`-label.N`	Pre-release identifier. Automatically set based on branch and build type.

Branch-based versioning

GitVersion automatically determines version suffixes based on the branch:

main branch: Produces 2.x.x versions
- CI builds: 2.7.1-ci.345 (includes build metadata)
- Production: 2.7.1 (no suffix)
v3 branch: Produces 3.x.x-preview.N versions (always has preview suffix)
Feature branches: x.x.x-{branch-name}.N (branch name becomes suffix)

Controlling version increments

Add semver tags to PR merge commit messages to control version bumps:

+semver: major → increments major version (breaking changes)
+semver: minor → increments minor version (new features)
+semver: patch → increments patch version (bug fixes, default behavior)
+semver: none → no version increment

Example merge commit: feat: Add new indicator (+semver: minor)

Creating preview releases from stable branches

To publish a preview/pre-release version from main or v2 (normally stable branches), create a Git tag with the desired suffix before triggering deployment:

# Create preview tag
git tag 2.8.0-preview.1
git push origin 2.8.0-preview.1

# Then trigger manual workflow deployment with preview=true

GitVersion will honor the tag’s pre-release suffix. This approach works for any pre-release label (preview, rc, beta, alpha).

Package deployment and tagging

Packages are deployed via two separate GitHub Actions workflows:

CI Package deploy (automatic)

Trigger: Push to main or v* branches

Published to GitHub Packages only
Version format: {Major}.{Minor}.{Patch}-ci.{run_number}
Examples: 2.7.2-ci.1234, 3.0.0-ci.567
Idempotent: Each commit gets unique incrementing run number
No Git tags created

Workflow: .github/workflows/deploy-package-github.yml

Production package deploy (manual)

Trigger: Creating a GitHub Release

Published to nuget.org only
Version comes directly from release tag (strips ‘v’ prefix)
Examples:
- Tag 2.8.0 → deploys 2.8.0 (stable)
- Tag 3.0.0-preview.2 → deploys 3.0.0-preview.2 (preview)
Draft releases: Dry-run mode (build only, no deploy)
Published releases: Full deployment to nuget.org
Git tag already exists (from release creation)

Workflow: .github/workflows/deploy-package-nuget.yml

Version examples

Scenario	Trigger	Version	Registry	Notes
CI build	Push to main	`2.7.2-ci.1234`	GitHub Packages	Run 1234
CI build	Push to main	`2.7.2-ci.1235`	GitHub Packages	Run 1235 (next commit)
CI build	Push to v3	`3.0.0-ci.567`	GitHub Packages	Run 567
Production	Release tag `2.8.0`	`2.8.0`	nuget.org	Stable version
Production	Release tag `3.0.0-preview.2`	`3.0.0-preview.2`	nuget.org	Preview version
Draft release	Release tag `2.8.1` (draft)	`2.8.1`	None (dry-run)	Build only, no deploy

For technical details, see:

GitVersion configuration: src/gitversion.yml
CI workflow: deploy-package-github.yml
Production workflow: deploy-package-nuget.yml

License

This repository uses a standard Apache 2.0 open-source license. It enables open-source community development by protecting the project and contributors from certain legal risks while allowing the widest range of uses, including in closed source software. Please review the license before using or contributing to the software.

Contact info

Start a new discussion or submit an issue if it is publicly relevant. You can also direct message @daveskender.

Thanks, Dave Skender