# How to contribute
You can contribute to this project in by:

* [implementing new features or improving existing ones;](#development)
* [subscribing and partecipating to the users mailing list;](https://lists.quantum-espresso.org/mailman/listinfo/users)
* [reporting bugs and proposing changes in the Issue section of the gitlab repository;](https://gitlab.com/QEF/q-e/blob/develop/CONTRIBUTING.md#creating-issues)
* [preparing new tests for the test suite](https://gitlab.com/QEF/q-e/wikis/Quantum-Espresso-test-suite)

## Development
If you want to contribute serious and non-trivial stuff ( or even simple and trivial  stuff ) you have  to *fork* this repository; keep it updated;
when your contribution is ready,  submit a merge request to the development branch  of this repository.
After some basic tests ran by gitlab CI and after approval, your changes will be merged into the development branch.

A basic guide on how to work with `git` can be found [here](https://docs.gitlab.com/ce/gitlab-basics/README.html). A  more thorough introduction to `git` is provided by [proGit](https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2) online e-book.



#### Suggested workflow

   - register on [gitlab](https://gitlab.com/users/sign_in);
   - [fork the QEF/q-e project](https://docs.gitlab.com/ce/gitlab-basics/fork-project.html);
   - [create a local copy of __your__ repository on your workstation(s)](https://docs.gitlab.com/ce/gitlab-basics/command-line-commands.html#clone-your-project);
   - [once your contribution is ready push it into __your__ repository](https://docs.gitlab.com/ce/gitlab-basics/start-using-git.html#send-changes-to-gitlab-com);
   - [create a  merge request to the `develop` branch of QEF/q-e](https://docs.gitlab.com/ce/gitlab-basics/add-merge-request.html#how-to-create-a-merge-request)
   - for more details and suggestions you can have a look to the wiki pages 


## Development tools
[Here](dev-tools/) you can find several tools that will assist you while contributing to the QE source code.

## Creating  Issues

You can report bugs and propose new developments by posting an [issue]( https://gitlab.com/QEF/q-e/issues) in the Issue section of this repository.
Partecipation to the issue discussions are also a welcome contribution.
When reporting bugs, please allow to reproduce the problem by providing input and output files.