Contributing

StackRivet is open core, and contributions are welcome. This page is how changes are proposed and landed.

Contribution areas

Area	Good contributions
Backend platform	Java / Spring Boot services, security, RBAC, code generation, tasks and Asset Service
Admin console	Vue 3 screens, usability improvements, route integration and component fixes
Website and docs	Public documentation, tutorials, examples, SEO/GEO improvements and copy fixes

Public usage, contribution and engineering rules are documented in the public repositories and on this site.

Proposal-first

For any feature, breaking change or cross-module work, open an issue or RFC before starting a large change. The proposal should include:

Why this change matters.
What public API, schema, UI or behavior changes.
Non-goals, so the scope stays reviewable.
Verification steps: tests, screenshots, migration checks or API calls.

Accepted proposals should leave enough public context for external contributors to understand and review the change. Architectural decisions that affect public extension points should be documented in the relevant public repository or in this site.

Governance gates

Non-trivial changes must satisfy the public repository gates: engineering standards, contribution rules, tests and CI. The Engineering standards and AI guardrails summarize the same rules for humans and AI tools.

Branch, PR, commit

Branch: feature/<slug>, fix/<slug>, docs/<slug>, chore/<slug>. Lifespan ≤ 3 days.
PR ≤ 500 lines. Split larger work (e.g. “structural reflow” + “content rewrite”).
Commits follow Conventional Commits with a reproducible Verified: line:

feat(<scope>): <imperative subject ≤ 70 chars>

- what changed
- which issue/RFC is associated (if any)

Verified:
- mvn verify → 0 failures
- pnpm build → exit 0

Contribution checklist

Send documentation changes to the page they affect; send code changes to the relevant code repository and link the related issue or docs in the PR.
Use repository-relative paths or public URLs in examples. Avoid machine-local paths, usernames, internal hostnames or environment details.
If a rule or example is stale, update it with rationale, replacement guidance and verification steps so future contributors can follow the same path.

Reporting issues

Open an issue with the file path + section, the inconsistency or unclear point, and a minimal reproduction when possible.