.. _contribute:

==============================
Contributing code to Briefcase
==============================

If you experience problems with Briefcase, `log them on GitHub`_. If you want
to contribute code, please `fork the code`_ and `submit a pull request`_.

.. _log them on GitHub: https://github.com/beeware/briefcase/issues
.. _fork the code: https://github.com/beeware/briefcase/fork
.. _submit a pull request: https://github.com/beeware/briefcase/pulls

.. _dev-environment-prereqs:

Prerequisites
=============

You'll need to install the following prerequisites.

.. tabs::

  .. group-tab:: macOS

    View the :ref:`macOS prerequisites <macos-prerequisites>`.

  .. group-tab:: Linux

    View the :ref:`Linux prerequisites <linux-prerequisites>`.

  .. group-tab:: Windows

    View the :ref:`Windows prerequisites <windows-prerequisites>`.

.. _dev-environment-tldr:

:spelling:ignore:`tl;dr` - Dev Quick-Setup
==========================================

Set up the dev environment by running:

.. tabs::

  .. group-tab:: macOS

    .. code-block:: console

      $ git clone https://github.com/beeware/briefcase.git
      $ cd briefcase
      $ python3 -m venv .venv
      $ . .venv/bin/activate
      (.venv) $ python -m pip install -Ue ".[dev]"
      (.venv) $ pre-commit install

  .. group-tab:: Linux

    .. code-block:: console

      $ git clone https://github.com/beeware/briefcase.git
      $ cd briefcase
      $ python3 -m venv .venv
      $ . .venv/bin/activate
      (.venv) $ python -m pip install -Ue ".[dev]"
      (.venv) $ pre-commit install

  .. group-tab:: Windows

    .. code-block:: doscon

      C:\...>git clone https://github.com/beeware/briefcase.git
      C:\...>cd briefcase
      C:\...>py -m venv .venv
      C:\...>.venv\Scripts\activate
      (.venv) C:\...>python -m pip install -Ue .[dev]
      (.venv) C:\...>pre-commit install

Invoke checks and tests by running:

.. tabs::

  .. group-tab:: macOS

    .. code-block:: console

      (.venv) $ tox p

  .. group-tab:: Linux

    .. code-block:: console

      (.venv) $ tox p

  .. group-tab:: Windows

    .. code-block:: doscon

      (.venv) C:\...>tox p

.. _setup-dev-environment:

Set up your development environment
===================================

The recommended way of setting up your development environment for Briefcase is
to use a `virtual environment <https://docs.python.org/3/library/venv.html>`__,
and then install the development version of Briefcase and its dependencies.

First, ensure that you have Python 3 and pip installed. To do this, run:

.. tabs::

  .. group-tab:: macOS

    .. code-block:: console

      $ python --version
      $ python -m pip --version

  .. group-tab:: Linux

    .. code-block:: console

      $ python --version
      $ python -m pip --version

  .. group-tab:: Windows

    .. code-block:: doscon

      C:\...>python --version
      C:\...>python -m pip --version

Clone the Briefcase repository
------------------------------

Next, go to the `Briefcase page on GitHub <https://github.com/beeware/briefcase>`__,
and, if you haven't already, `fork the repository <https://github.com/beeware/briefcase/fork>`__
into your own account. Next, click on the "<> Code" button on your fork. If you have the
GitHub desktop application installed on your computer, you can select "Open with GitHub
Desktop"; otherwise, copy the HTTPS URL provided, and use it to clone the repository
to your computer using the command line:

.. tabs::

  .. group-tab:: macOS

    Fork the Briefcase repository, and then:

    .. code-block:: console

      $ git clone https://github.com/<your username>/briefcase.git

    (substituting your GitHub username)

  .. group-tab:: Linux

    Fork the Briefcase repository, and then:

    .. code-block:: console

      $ git clone https://github.com/<your username>/briefcase.git

    (substituting your GitHub username)

  .. group-tab:: Windows

    Fork the Briefcase repository, and then:

    .. code-block:: doscon

      C:\...>git clone https://github.com/<your username>/briefcase.git

    (substituting your GitHub username)

Create a virtual environment
----------------------------

To set up a virtual environment, run:

.. tabs::

  .. group-tab:: macOS

    .. code-block:: console

      $ cd briefcase
      $ python3 -m venv .venv
      $ source .venv/bin/activate

  .. group-tab:: Linux

    .. code-block:: console

      $ cd briefcase
      $ python3 -m venv .venv
      $ source .venv/bin/activate

  .. group-tab:: Windows

    .. code-block:: doscon

      C:\...>cd briefcase
      C:\...>python -m venv .venv
      C:\...>.venv\Scripts\activate

Your prompt should now have a ``(.venv)`` prefix in front of it.

Install Briefcase
-----------------

Now that you have the source code, you can do an
`editable install <https://setuptools.pypa.io/en/latest/userguide/development_mode.html>`__
of Briefcase into your development environment. Run the following command:

.. tabs::

  .. group-tab:: macOS

    .. code-block:: console

      (.venv) $ python -m pip install -e ".[dev]"

  .. group-tab:: Linux

    .. code-block:: console

      (.venv) $ python -m pip install -e ".[dev]"

  .. group-tab:: Windows

    .. code-block:: doscon

      (.venv) C:\...>python -m pip install -e .[dev]


Enable pre-commit
-----------------

Briefcase uses a tool called `pre-commit <https://pre-commit.com>`__ to identify
simple issues and standardize code formatting. It does this by installing a git
hook that automatically runs a series of code linters prior to finalizing any
git commit. To enable pre-commit, run:

.. tabs::

  .. group-tab:: macOS

    .. code-block:: console

      (.venv) $ pre-commit install
      pre-commit installed at .git/hooks/pre-commit

  .. group-tab:: Linux

    .. code-block:: console

      (.venv) $ pre-commit install
      pre-commit installed at .git/hooks/pre-commit

  .. group-tab:: Windows

    .. code-block:: doscon

      (.venv) C:\...>pre-commit install
      pre-commit installed at .git/hooks/pre-commit

Now you are ready to start hacking on Briefcase!

What should I do?
=================

Depending on your level of expertise, or areas of interest, there are a number
of ways you can contribute to Briefcase's code.

Fix a bug
---------

Briefcase's issue tracker logs the list of `known issues
<https://github.com/beeware/briefcase/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3Abug>`__.
Any of these issues are candidates to be worked on. This list can be filtered by
platform, so you can focus on issues that affect the platforms you're able to
test on. There's also a filter for `good first issues
<https://github.com/beeware/briefcase/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3A%22good+first+issue%22>`__
. These have been identified as problems that have a known cause, and we believe
the fix *should* be relatively simple (although we might be wrong in our
analysis).

We don't have any formal process of "claiming" or "assigning" issues; if you're
interested in a ticket, leave a comment that says you're working on it. If
there's an existing comment that says someone is working on the issue, and that
comment is recent, then leave a comment asking if they're still working on the
issue. If you don't get a response in a day or two, you can assume the issue is
available. If the most recent comment is more than a few weeks old, it's
probably safe to assume that the issue is still available to be worked on.

If an issue is particularly old (more than 6 months), it's entirely possible
that the issue has been resolved, so the first step is to verify that you can
reproduce the problem. Use the information provided in the bug report to try and
reproduce the problem. If you can't reproduce the problem, report what you have
found as a comment on the ticket, and pick another ticket.

If a bug report has no comments from anyone other than the original reporter,
the issue needs to be triaged. Triaging a bug involves taking the
information provided by the reporter, and trying to reproduce it. Again, if you
can't reproduce the problem, report what you have found as a comment on the
ticket, and pick another ticket.

If you can reproduce the problem - try to fix it! Work out what combination of code is
implementing the feature, and see if you can work out what isn't working correctly.

If you're able to fix the problem, you'll need to :ref:`add tests
<run-test-suite>` to verify that the problem has been fixed (and to prevent
the issue from occurring again in future).

Even if you can't fix the problem, reporting anything you discover as a comment
on the ticket is worthwhile. If you can find the source of the problem, but not
the fix, that knowledge will often be enough for someone who knows more about a
platform to solve the problem. Even a good reproduction case (a sample app that
does nothing but reproduce the problem) can be a huge help.

Contribute improvements to documentation
----------------------------------------

We've got a :doc:`separate contribution guide <./docs>` for documentation contributions.
This covers how to set up your development environment to build Briefcase's
documentation, and separate ideas for what to work on.

Add a new feature
-----------------

Can you think of a feature that Briefcase should have? Propose a new API or feature,
and provide a sample implementation. If you don't have any ideas of your own,
the Briefcase issue tracker has some `existing feature suggestions
<https://github.com/beeware/briefcase/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3Aenhancement>`__
that you could try to implement.

Again, you'll need to add unit tests for any new features you add.

Implement an entirely new platform backend
------------------------------------------

Briefcase currently has support for 6 platforms, with multiple formats on some backends
- but there's room for more! In particular, we'd be interested in seeing a `Snap backend
<https://github.com/beeware/briefcase/issues/358>`__ to support Ubuntu's packaging
format, or support for Apple's `tvOS <https://github.com/beeware/briefcase/issues/4>`__,
`watchOS <https://github.com/beeware/briefcase/issues/5>`__, and `visionOS
<https://github.com/beeware/briefcase/issues/2253>`__ platforms.

.. _run-test-suite:

Running tests and coverage
==========================

Briefcase uses `tox <https://tox.wiki/en/latest/>`__ to manage the testing
process and |pytest|_ for its own test suite.

.. |pytest| replace:: ``pytest``
.. _pytest: https://docs.pytest.org/en/latest

The default ``tox`` command includes running:
 * pre-commit hooks
 * ``towncrier`` release note check
 * documentation linting
 * test suite for available Python versions
 * code coverage reporting

This is essentially what is run by CI when you submit a pull request.

To run the full test suite, run:

.. tabs::

  .. group-tab:: macOS

    .. code-block:: console

      (.venv) $ tox

  .. group-tab:: Linux

    .. code-block:: console

      (.venv) $ tox

  .. group-tab:: Windows

    .. code-block:: doscon

      (.venv) C:\...>tox

The full test suite can take a while to run. You can speed it up considerably by
running tox in parallel, by running ``tox p`` (or ``tox run-parallel``). When
you run the test suite in parallel, you'll get less feedback on the progress of
the test suite as it runs, but you'll still get a summary of any problems found
at the end of the test run.
You should get some output indicating that tests have been run. You may see
``SKIPPED`` tests, but shouldn't ever get any ``FAIL`` or ``ERROR`` test
results. We run our full test suite before merging every patch. If that process
discovers any problems, we don't merge the patch. If you do find a test error or
failure, either there's something odd in your test environment, or you've found
an edge case that we haven't seen before - either way, let us know!

As with the full test suite, and the core, this should report :ref:`100% test coverage
<code-coverage>`.

Running test variations
=======================

Run tests for multiple versions of Python
-----------------------------------------

By default, many of the ``tox`` commands will attempt to run the test suite
multiple times, once for each Python version supported by Briefcase. To do
this, though, each of the Python versions must be installed on your machine
and available to tox's Python `discovery
<https://virtualenv.pypa.io/en/latest/user_guide.html#python-discovery>`__
process. In general, if a version of Python is available via ``PATH``, then
tox should be able to find and use it.

Run only the test suite
-----------------------

If you're rapidly iterating on a new feature, you don't need to run the full
test suite; you can run *just* the unit tests. To do this, run:

.. tabs::

  .. group-tab:: macOS

    .. code-block:: console

      (.venv) $ tox -e py

  .. group-tab:: Linux

    .. code-block:: console

      (.venv) $ tox -e py

  .. group-tab:: Windows

    .. code-block:: doscon

      (.venv) C:\...>tox -e py

.. _test-subset:

Run a subset of tests
---------------------

By default, tox will run all tests in the unit test suite.
When you're developing your new test, it may be helpful to run *just* that one
test. To do this, you can pass in `any pytest specifier
<https://docs.pytest.org/en/latest/how-to/usage.html#specifying-which-tests-to-run>`__
as an argument to tox. These test paths are relative to the ``briefcase`` directory. For
example, to run only the tests in a single file, run:

.. tabs::

  .. group-tab:: macOS

    .. code-block:: console

      (.venv) $ tox -e py -- tests/path_to_test_file/test_some_test.py

  .. group-tab:: Linux

    .. code-block:: console

      (.venv) $ tox -e py -- tests/path_to_test_file/test_some_test.py

  .. group-tab:: Windows

    .. code-block:: doscon

      (.venv) C:\...>tox -e py -- tests/path_to_test_file/test_some_test.py

You'll still get a coverage report when running a part of the test suite -
but the coverage results will only report the lines of code that were executed by the
specific tests you ran.

.. _test-py-version:

Run the test suite for a specific Python version
------------------------------------------------

By default ``tox -e py`` will run using whatever interpreter resolves as
``python`` on your machine. If you have multiple Python versions installed, and
want to test a specific Python version from the versions you have installed, you can
specify a specific Python version to use. For example, to run the test suite on Python
3.10, run:

.. tabs::

  .. group-tab:: macOS

    .. code-block:: console

      (.venv) $ tox -e py310

  .. group-tab:: Linux

    .. code-block:: console

      (.venv) $ tox -e py310

  .. group-tab:: Windows

    .. code-block:: doscon

      (.venv) C:\...>tox -e py310

A :ref:`subset of tests <test-subset>` can be run by adding ``--`` and a test
specification to the command line.

Run the test suite without coverage (fast)
------------------------------------------

By default, tox will run the pytest suite in single threaded mode. You can speed
up the execution of the test suite by running the test suite in parallel. This
mode does not produce coverage files due to complexities in capturing coverage
within spawned processes. To run a single python version in "fast" mode, run:

.. tabs::

  .. group-tab:: macOS

    .. code-block:: console

      (.venv) $ tox -e py-fast

  .. group-tab:: Linux

    .. code-block:: console

      (.venv) $ tox -e py-fast

  .. group-tab:: Windows

    .. code-block:: doscon

      (.venv) C:\...>tox -e py-fast

A :ref:`subset of tests <test-subset>` can be run by adding ``--`` and a test
specification to the command line; a :ref:`specific Python version
<test-py-version>` can be used by adding the version to the test target (e.g.,
``py310-fast`` to run fast on Python 3.10).

.. _code-coverage:

Code coverage
=============

Briefcase maintains 100% branch coverage in its codebase. When you add or
modify code in the project, you must add test code to ensure coverage of any
changes you make.

However, Briefcase targets multiple platforms, as well as multiple
versions of Python, so full coverage cannot be verified on a single platform and
Python version. To accommodate this, several conditional coverage rules are
defined in the ``tool.coverage.coverage_conditional_plugin.rules`` section of
``pyproject.toml`` (e.g., ``no-cover-if-is-windows`` can be used to flag a block
of code that won't be executed when running the test suite on Windows). These
rules are used to identify sections of code that are only covered on particular
platforms or Python versions.

Of note, coverage reporting across Python versions can be a bit quirky. For
instance, if coverage files are produced using one version of Python but
coverage reporting is done on another, the report may include false positives
for missed branches. Because of this, coverage reporting should always use the
oldest version Python used to produce the coverage files.

Understanding coverage results
------------------------------

At the end of the coverage test output there should be a report of the coverage data
that was gathered:

.. code-block:: console

    Name    Stmts   Miss Branch BrPart   Cover   Missing
    ----------------------------------------------------
    TOTAL    7540      0   1040      0  100.0%

This tells us that the test suite has executed every possible branching path
in the ``briefcase`` code. This isn't a 100% guarantee that there are no bugs,
but it does mean that we're exercising every line of code in the codebase.

If you make changes to the codebase, it's possible you'll introduce a gap in this
coverage. When this happens, the coverage report will tell you which lines aren't
being executed. For example, lets say we made a change to
``briefcase/integrations/file.py``, adding some new logic. The coverage report might
look something like:

.. code-block:: console

    Name                                 Stmts   Miss Branch BrPart  Cover   Missing
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    src/briefcase/integrations/file.py     111      1     26      0  98.1%   170, 302-307
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    TOTAL                                 7540      1   1726      0  99.9%

This tells us that line 170, and lines 302-307 are not being executed by the test
suite. You'll need to add new tests (or modify an existing test) to restore this
coverage.

Coverage report for host platform and Python version
----------------------------------------------------

You can generate a coverage report for your platform and version of Python. For
example, to run the test suite and generate a coverage report on Python 3.11,
run:

.. tabs::

  .. group-tab:: macOS

    .. code-block:: console

      (.venv) $ tox -m test311

  .. group-tab:: Linux

    .. code-block:: console

      (.venv) $ tox -m test311

  .. group-tab:: Windows

    .. code-block:: doscon

      (.venv) C:\...>tox -m test311

Coverage report for host platform
---------------------------------

If all supported versions of Python are available to tox, then coverage for the
host platform can be reported by running:

.. tabs::

  .. group-tab:: macOS

    .. code-block:: console

      (.venv) $ tox p -m test-platform

  .. group-tab:: Linux

    .. code-block:: console

      (.venv) $ tox p -m test-platform

  .. group-tab:: Windows

    .. code-block:: doscon

      (.venv) C:\...>tox p -m test-platform

Coverage reporting in HTML
--------------------------

A HTML coverage report can be generated by appending ``-html`` to any of the
coverage tox environment names, for instance:

.. tabs::

  .. group-tab:: macOS

    .. code-block:: console

      (.venv) $ tox -e coverage-platform-html

  .. group-tab:: Linux

    .. code-block:: console

      (.venv) $ tox -e coverage-platform-html

  .. group-tab:: Windows

    .. code-block:: doscon

      (.venv) C:\...>tox -e coverage-platform-html

.. _pr-housekeeping:

Submitting a pull request
=========================

Before you submit a pull request, there's a few bits of housekeeping to do.

Submit from a feature branch, not your ``main`` branch
------------------------------------------------------

Before you start working on your change, make sure you've created a branch.
By default, when you clone your repository fork, you'll be checked out on
your ``main`` branch. This is a direct copy of Briefcase's ``main`` branch.

While you *can* submit a pull request from your ``main`` branch, it's preferable
if you *don't* do this. If you submit a pull request that is *almost* right, the
core team member who reviews your pull request may be able to make the necessary
changes, rather than giving feedback asking for a minor change. However, if you
submit your pull request from your ``main`` branch, reviewers are prevented from
making modifications.

Instead, you should make your changes on a *feature branch*. A feature branch has a
simple name to identify the change that you've made. For example, if you've found a bug
in Briefcase's binary signing on Windows, you might create a feature branch
``fix-windows-signing``. If your bug relates to a specific issue that has been reported,
it's also common to reference that issue number in the branch name (e.g., ``fix-1234``).

To create a ``fix-windows-signing`` feature branch, run:

.. tabs::

  .. group-tab:: macOS

    .. code-block:: console

      (.venv) $ git switch -c fix-windows-signing

  .. group-tab:: Linux

    .. code-block:: console

      (.venv) $ git switch -c fix-windows-signing

  .. group-tab:: Windows

    .. code-block:: doscon

      (.venv) C:\...>git switch -c fix-windows-signing

Commit your changes to this branch, then push to GitHub and create a pull request.

Working with pre-commit
-----------------------

When you commit any change, pre-commit will run automatically. If there are any
issues found with the commit, this will cause your commit to fail. Where possible,
pre-commit will make the changes needed to correct the problems it has found:

.. tabs::

  .. group-tab:: macOS

    .. code-block:: console

      (.venv) $ git add some/interesting_file.py
      (.venv) $ git commit -m "Minor change"
      check toml...............................................................Passed
      check yaml...............................................................Passed
      check for case conflicts.................................................Passed
      check docstring is first.................................................Passed
      fix end of files.........................................................Passed
      trim trailing whitespace.................................................Passed
      ruff format..............................................................Failed
      - hook id: ruff-format
      - files were modified by this hook

      1 file reformatted, 488 files left unchanged

      ruff check...............................................................Passed
      codespell................................................................Passed

  .. group-tab:: Linux

    .. code-block:: console

      (.venv) $ git add some/interesting_file.py
      (.venv) $ git commit -m "Minor change"
      check toml...............................................................Passed
      check yaml...............................................................Passed
      check for case conflicts.................................................Passed
      check docstring is first.................................................Passed
      fix end of files.........................................................Passed
      trim trailing whitespace.................................................Passed
      ruff format..............................................................Failed
      - hook id: ruff-format
      - files were modified by this hook

      1 file reformatted, 488 files left unchanged

      ruff check...............................................................Passed
      codespell................................................................Passed

  .. group-tab:: Windows

    .. code-block:: doscon

      (.venv) C:\...>git add some/interesting_file.py
      (.venv) C:\...>git commit -m "Minor change"
      check toml...............................................................Passed
      check yaml...............................................................Passed
      check for case conflicts.................................................Passed
      check docstring is first.................................................Passed
      fix end of files.........................................................Passed
      trim trailing whitespace.................................................Passed
      ruff format..............................................................Failed
      - hook id: ruff-format
      - files were modified by this hook

      1 file reformatted, 488 files left unchanged

      ruff check...............................................................Passed
      codespell................................................................Passed

You can then re-add any files that were modified as a result of the pre-commit checks,
and re-commit the change.

.. tabs::

  .. group-tab:: macOS

    .. code-block:: console

      (.venv) $ git add some/interesting_file.py
      (.venv) $ git commit -m "Minor change"
      check toml...............................................................Passed
      check yaml...............................................................Passed
      check for case conflicts.................................................Passed
      check docstring is first.................................................Passed
      fix end of files.........................................................Passed
      trim trailing whitespace.................................................Passed
      ruff format..............................................................Passed
      ruff check...............................................................Passed
      codespell................................................................Passed
      [bugfix e3e0f73] Minor change
      1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

  .. group-tab:: Linux

    .. code-block:: console

      (.venv) $ git add some/interesting_file.py
      (.venv) $ git commit -m "Minor change"
      check toml...............................................................Passed
      check yaml...............................................................Passed
      check for case conflicts.................................................Passed
      check docstring is first.................................................Passed
      fix end of files.........................................................Passed
      trim trailing whitespace.................................................Passed
      ruff format..............................................................Passed
      ruff check...............................................................Passed
      codespell................................................................Passed
      [bugfix e3e0f73] Minor change
      1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

  .. group-tab:: Windows

    .. code-block:: doscon

      (.venv) C:\...>git add some\interesting_file.py
      (.venv) C:\...>git commit -m "Minor change"
      check toml...............................................................Passed
      check yaml...............................................................Passed
      check for case conflicts.................................................Passed
      check docstring is first.................................................Passed
      fix end of files.........................................................Passed
      trim trailing whitespace.................................................Passed
      ruff format..............................................................Passed
      ruff check...............................................................Passed
      codespell................................................................Passed

Once everything passes, you're ready for the next steps.

Add change information for release notes
----------------------------------------

When you submit this change as a pull request, you need to add a *change
note*. Briefcase uses |towncrier|_ to automate
building the release notes for each release. Every pull request must include at
least one file in the ``changes/`` directory that provides a short description
of the change implemented by the pull request.

.. |towncrier| replace:: ``towncrier``
.. _towncrier: https://pypi.org/project/towncrier/

The change note should be in reStructuredText format, in a file that has name of the
format ``<id>.<fragment type>.rst``. If the change you are proposing will fix a bug or
implement a feature for which there is an existing issue number, the ID will be
the number of that ticket. If the change has no corresponding issue, the PR
number can be used as the ID. You won't know this PR number until you push the
pull request, so the first CI pass will fail the ``towncrier`` check; add the change
note and push a PR update and CI should then pass.

There are five allowed fragment types:

- ``feature``: The PR adds a new behavior or capability that wasn't previously
  possible (e.g., adding support for a new packaging format, or a new feature in an
  existing packaging format);
- ``bugfix``: The PR fixes a bug in the existing implementation;
- ``doc``: The PR is an significant improvement to documentation;
- ``removal``; The PR represents a backwards incompatible change in the Briefcase
  API; or
- ``misc``; A minor or administrative change (e.g., fixing a typo, a minor
  language clarification, or updating a dependency version) that doesn't need to
  be announced in the release notes.

This description in the change note should be a high level summary of the change from
the perspective of the user, not a deep technical description or implementation
detail. It is distinct from a commit message - a commit message describes what
has been done so that future developers can follow the reasoning for a change;
the change note is a "user facing" description. For example, if you fix a bug
related to project naming, the commit message might read:

    Disallow project names that begin with a number.

The corresponding change note would read something like:

    Project names can no longer begin with a number.

Some PRs will introduce multiple features and fix multiple bugs, or introduce
multiple backwards incompatible changes. In that case, the PR may have multiple
change note files. If you need to associate two fragment types with the same ID,
you can append a numerical suffix. For example, if PR 789 added a feature
described by ticket 123, closed a bug described by ticket 234, and also made two
backwards incompatible changes, you might have 4 change note files:

* ``123.feature.rst``
* ``234.bugfix.rst``
* ``789.removal.1.rst``
* ``789.removal.2.rst``

For more information about ``towncrier`` and fragment types see `News Fragments
<https://towncrier.readthedocs.io/en/stable/tutorial.html#creating-news-fragments>`__.
You can also see existing examples of news fragments in the ``changes``
directory of the Briefcase repository. If this folder is empty, it's likely because
Briefcase has recently published a new release; change note files are deleted and
combined to update the :doc:`release notes </about/releases>` with
each release. You can look at that file to see the style of comment that is
required; you can look at `recently merged PRs
<https://github.com/beeware/briefcase/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Amerged>`__ to see how to
format your change notes.

It's not just about coverage!
-----------------------------

Although we have full test coverage, the task isn't *just* about maintaining
the numerical coverage value. Part of the task is to audit the code as you go.
You could write a comprehensive set of tests for a concrete life jacket... but
a concrete life jacket would still be useless for the purpose it was intended!

As you develop tests and improve coverage, you should be checking that the
core module is internally **consistent** as well. If you notice any method
names that aren't internally consistent (e.g., something called ``on_select``
in one module, but called ``on_selected`` in another), or where the data isn't
being handled consistently, flag it and bring it to our attention by
raising a ticket. Or, if you're confident that you know what needs to be done,
create a pull request that fixes the problem you've found.

Waiting for feedback
--------------------

Once you've written your code, test, and change note, you can submit your
changes as a pull request. One of the core team will review your work, and
give feedback. If any changes are requested, you can make those changes, and
update your pull request; eventually, the pull request will be accepted and
merged. Congratulations, you're a contributor to Briefcase!

What next?
==========

Rinse and repeat! If you've improved coverage by one line, go back and do it
again for *another* coverage line! If you've implemented a new feature, implement
*another* feature!

Most importantly - have fun!
