Contributing
Thank you for considering contributing to Citizen!
Citizen is a small open-source project, and we appreciate any help. Here are some ways you can contribute:
How to submit a contribution
- Fork the Citizen repository.
- Create a new branch in your fork to make your changes.
- Commit your changes to your new branch.
- Push your changes to your fork on GitHub.
- Submit a pull request from your branch to the Citizen repository.
We will review your pull request and, if everything looks good, merge it into the main codebase.
AI-assisted contributions
The maintainers of Citizen use AI tools (such as LLMs and code assistants) as part of their development workflow. Contributors are welcome to do the same, subject to the following expectations:
Human accountability
The person submitting a contribution is fully responsible for it, regardless of how it was produced. If you use AI to help write code, you must understand what the code does, verify that it works, and be prepared to maintain it.
Licensing and copyright
You must ensure that your contribution is compatible with the project's license (GPL-3.0-or-later) and does not incorporate third-party code in a way that violates its copyright or license terms. This applies to all contributions — whether written by hand, copied from a reference, or generated with a tool.
Quality over volume
Every submission should be purposeful, well-tested, and reviewed for correctness, style, and fit with the project. PRs that appear to be unreviewed AI output — large dumps of generated code, generic boilerplate, or changes that ignore the project's conventions — will be closed.
Communication
Commit messages, PR descriptions, and review comments should be clear, specific, and relevant — regardless of how they were drafted. Generic filler like "This PR improves code quality and enhances maintainability" tells reviewers nothing. Make sure your communication actually describes what changed and why.
Translations
You can submit translations via TranslateWiki.net. They are usually merged bi-weekly.
Questions
If you have any questions about contributing, feel free to open an issue and ask.