CONTRIBUTING

Contributing to better_launch

Please inform me as early as possible about your planned developments. You may have noticed that better_launch is somewhat opinionated and I will be picky about what to include :) An easy way is to open an issue in which you explain what you are trying to do.

Issues

Any issues should be reported on the better_launch issue tracker. This is also the preferred way of getting support, making feature requests, etc. Keep your post short and concise, I have other books to read :) I will ask clarifying questions as needed.

Pull Requests

The preferred way to contribute to better_launch is to fork the repository on GitHub and work from the devel branch, then submit a “pull request” (PR):

  1. Create an account on GitHub if you do not already have one.

  2. Fork the project repository: click on the ‘Fork’ button near the top of the page. This creates a copy of the code under your account on the GitHub server.

  3. Clone this copy to your local disk:

     $ git clone -b devel git@github.com:dfki-rc/better_launch.git

  4. Create a branch to hold your changes:

     $ git checkout -b my-feature devel

    and start making changes. Never work in the master branch!

  5. Work on this copy, on your computer, using Git to do the version control. When you’re done editing, do:

     $ git add modified_files
 $ git commit

    to record your changes in Git, then push them to GitHub with::

     $ git push -u origin my-feature

Finally, go to the web page of the your fork of the bolero repo, and click ‘Pull request’ to send your changes to the maintainers for review request.

Merge Policy

Developers have to submit pull requests. Those will be reviewed by at least one other developer and merged by the maintainer. New features must be documented and tested. Breaking changes must be discussed and announced in advance with deprecation warnings.

Roadmap

  • a tool for generating launch graphs from better_launch launch files

  • more interactions for the TUI like setting live parameters

  • something for converting regular ROS2 launch files to better_launch. Some people had good experiences using LLMs

  • who knows :)

Funding

better_launch was initiated and is currently developed at the Robotics Innovation Center of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) in Bremen.

dfki-logo