14 KiB
Development
Start here when contributing to ConfigKit. Read the task-specific owners below before making changes. The component overview maps implementation responsibilities; the configuration contract owns public behavior.
Initial orientation
- Inspect the working tree and preserve unrelated changes.
- Use the Policy Reading Guide below to select applicable policies.
- Read the contract and internal documents applicable to the task.
- Inspect the relevant implementation and behavioral tests before changing them.
Policy Reading Guide
| Policy | Read before… |
|---|---|
| Policy set provenance | Adopting policies, checking upstream revisions, or updating the adopted policy set. |
| Agents | Recommending, planning, or implementing repository changes. |
| Architecture | Planning or changing Go library code or its structure. |
| Testing | Selecting validation for code changes, or adding, changing, removing, or evaluating tests. |
| Documentation | Writing, revising, or reorganizing documentation. |
| OSS | Adding or updating dependencies or incorporated third-party material, or changing licensing or attribution. |
| Release | Preparing or publishing a release, changing release procedures, or making versioning and compatibility decisions. |
- Read applicable policies before making decisions they govern; multiple policies may apply.
- Select policies using the task triggers above. Follow cross-references to relevant sections when needed to resolve a concrete question.
- Reuse policies already available in context; reread when changed or no longer available.
- Expand reading when the task's scope expands.
- When revising a policy itself, read that policy and any provisions elsewhere affected by the revision.
Task-specific reading guide
| Task | Read |
|---|---|
| Repository orientation or component responsibility | Component overview |
| Documentation changes | The owning document |
| Licensing, dependencies, attribution, or release-document changes | Project grant and attribution; release changes also follow the release procedure |
| Architecture decisions or future work | Deferred scope and relevant ADRs listed below |
| Code and test changes | The owning contract and tests from the map below |
| Examples or copyable assets | The owning implemented contract and consumer adoption guide |
| Release preparation | Release procedure |
Accepted decisions:
- Separate composition and overlay
- Own YAML semantics behind a private parser boundary
- Preserve presence and record application resolution
- Secret references and explicit bootstrap
- Explicit overrides and safe explanation
- Keep the public facade root-owned
- Compare frozen effective configuration snapshots
For cross-cutting changes, follow every applicable row. Completed implementation
and remediation plans are preserved in Git history at cb5b435; use current
contracts and the component overview for ongoing work. For example:
git show cb5b435:docs/roadmap/remediation.md
Release-candidate, publication, and verification work follows the operational
release procedure. Its module-selected ReleaseKit publish
invocation validates the committed candidate and publishes only the intended
tag; those release checks remain distinct from the everyday development check.
The completed string-and-integer schema-version implementation and remediation
records are preserved in Git history at 244104f. The
configuration contract owns current behavior.
The completed source-origins and public-facade roadmaps, implementation plan, and
resolved review findings are preserved in Git history at 5760614, for example
git show 5760614:docs/roadmap/remediation.md. The earlier source-origins staged
plan remains at 28e7fc5:docs/roadmap/implementation.md. Current resolution
behavior belongs to the configuration contract,
and current facade ownership belongs to the component overview.
Baseline validation
The completed filesystem-source and underlay roadmap, original feature request,
implementation plan, and resolved remediation record are preserved in Git history
at b604aa1 under docs/roadmap/. Current behavior belongs to the
configuration contract. Built-in sibling
inheritance is now part of the configuration contract.
The completed request, roadmap, plan, and resolved review findings are preserved
in Git history at 83c59ea under docs/roadmap/.
The completed overlay rename plan and release-workflow simplification record are
preserved in Git history at 73ce6e9 under docs/roadmap/. Current overlay
behavior belongs to the configuration contract,
and release operations belong to the release procedure.
The completed ReleaseKit adoption, startup performance request and experiments,
benchmark evidence, performance audit, implementation plan, and remediation
record are preserved in Git history at 8e91a2b under docs/roadmap/. For example:
git show 8e91a2b:docs/roadmap/startup-benchmark.md
Remaining optimization candidates belong to deferred scope.
Install the Go version required by go.mod or a compatible newer toolchain.
Acquire declared dependencies explicitly before entering an offline
development or validation environment:
go mod download
Run the everyday check with Bash 3.2 or newer and Git:
./scripts/check.sh
The script runs from the repository root regardless of the
invocation directory. It checks Go formatting without rewriting files, checks
staged/unstaged and untracked whitespace, then runs go test ./...,
go vet ./..., and go build ./..., stopping on the first failure. It uses the
installed Go toolchain by default, honors an explicit GOTOOLCHAIN, and disables
dependency downloads. Acquire dependencies and any selected toolchain beforehand.
Format reported Go files with gofmt -w <files>.
The default suite includes executable examples, maintained consumer fixtures, local documentation-link checks, and the dependency import-boundary check. It must stay deterministic and runnable without network access or credentials. Still inspect new/untracked content and review paths, examples, ownership, and current-versus-planned claims; automated checks do not replace content review.
Use focused checks while iterating, with validation proportionate to the change
under the testing policy. Documentation-only work normally needs the local-link
check below and whitespace review; behavior-bearing examples and commands also
need execution. Use go test -race ./... for ownership or concurrency changes.
The release procedure performs
its selected validation through one publish invocation. The everyday checker
remains a development gate and is not a separate release prerequisite. CI never
gates a release.
Task-to-test map
Commands run from the repository root after dependency acquisition. These are starting points for focused iteration; run the everyday check before handing off code changes. Use the component overview to find the corresponding implementation.
| Task | Behavioral test owners | Focused command |
|---|---|---|
| YAML syntax, diagnostics, parser limits | Adapter tests, source translation | go test ./internal/yaml and go test ./internal/engine -run '^TestParseSource' |
| File/reader access, imports, globs, containment | Sources, FIFO, imports, globs | go test ./internal/engine -run 'Source|Import|Glob|Filesystem|Nonregular|RegularFile' |
| Native filesystem and mapping sources | Native acquisition, filesystem facade, mapping facade | go test ./internal/engine -run 'NativeFilesystem' and go test . -run 'TestFacade' |
| Composition, selected overlays, CLI precedence | Composition, overlay, selected overlays, overrides | go test ./internal/engine -run 'Compose|Overlay|Override' |
| Sibling inheritance, provenance, history, sensitivity | Expansion, destination scopes, origins, history, secrets, public loading | go test ./internal/engine -run 'Inheritance|Inherited' and go test . -run '^TestFacadeInheritance|^TestFacadeInheritedSecrets' |
| Layered loading and source equivalence | Grouped lifecycle, layered facade, equivalence | go test ./internal/engine -run '^TestGrouped', go test . -run '^TestFacadeLayered', and go test . -run '^TestEquivalentSourceForms' |
| Schema, defaults, projection, cloning | Schema, decoding, projection | go test ./internal/engine -run 'Schema|Decode|Projection|Clone|Inline|CompareDocument' |
| Lifecycle, resolution, validation, callback ownership | Loading, resolution, validation, ownership, independence | go test ./internal/engine -run 'Load|Resolution|Validation|Validator|Hook|Callback|Parallel' |
| Paths, metadata, provenance | Paths, metadata, provenance | go test ./internal/engine -run 'Path|Metadata|Provenance|Queries' |
| Passive resource contexts | Engine contexts, public contexts | go test ./internal/engine -run 'Resource' and go test . -run 'SourceContext' |
| Secrets, bootstrap, redaction, explanation | References, bootstrap, rendering, explanation | go test ./internal/engine -run 'Secret|Bootstrap|Effective|Explain|Explanation|History|Sensitivity' |
| Effective configuration diff | Engine comparison and masking tests, engine operation tests, root facade tests, and consumer examples | `go test ./internal/engine -run 'Diff |
| Consumer examples and migration fixtures | Consumer tests, native and layered examples, API examples | go test ./examples/consumers and go test . -run '^Example' |
| Assembly and layered scaling evidence | Assembly benchmarks, layered benchmarks | go test ./internal/engine -run '^$' -bench '^BenchmarkUnderlay' -benchmem; repeat with ^BenchmarkCompose and ^BenchmarkOverlay |
| Inheritance scaling evidence | Expansion benchmarks | go test ./internal/engine -run '^$' -bench '^BenchmarkInheritance' -benchmem |
| Documentation links and dependency isolation | Link checks, import boundary, public boundary | go test . -run 'TestLocalDocumentationLinks|TestDependencyImportBoundary|TestPublicFacadeBoundary' |
| Development check behavior | Development checker test | go test . -run '^TestDevelopmentCheckHandlesFilenamesAndStopsOnFailure$' |
| Release profile wiring | Release profile test | go test . -run '^TestReleaseKitProfile$' |
Fuzz validation
Run the bounded fuzz targets independently from the repository root. These exact commands keep each campaign short and constrain concurrent workers:
go test ./internal/engine -run='^$' -fuzz='^FuzzParsePath$' -fuzztime=30s -parallel=2
go test ./internal/yaml -run='^$' -fuzz='^FuzzParseDocument$' -fuzztime=30s -parallel=2
go test ./internal/engine -run='^$' -fuzz='^FuzzCompositionAndOverlay$' -fuzztime=30s -parallel=2