ref: 474eb454dfb6e150d0a7a79edf32906f7a2355d8
dir: /docs/content/community/contributing.md/
---
aliases:
- /doc/contributing/
- /meta/contributing/
lastmod: 2015-02-12
date: 2013-07-01
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parent: community
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title: Contributing to Hugo
weight: 30
---
All contributions to Hugo are welcome. Whether you want to scratch an itch, or simply contribute to the project, feel free to pick something from the [roadmap]({{< relref "meta/roadmap.md" >}}) or contact [spf13](http://spf13.com/) about what may make sense to do next.
You should fork the project and make your changes. *We encourage pull requests to discuss code changes.*
When you're ready to create a pull request, be sure to:
* Have test cases for the new code. If you have questions about how to do it, please ask in your pull request.
* Run `go fmt`
* Squash your commits into a single commit. `git rebase -i`. It's okay to force update your pull request.
* Make sure `go test ./...` passes, and `go build` completes. Our [Travis CI loop](https://travis-ci.org/spf13/hugo) will catch most things that are missing. The exception: Windows. We run on Windows from time to time, but if you have access, please check on a Windows machine too.
## Contribution Overview
We wrote a [detailed guide]({{< relref "tutorials/how-to-contribute-to-hugo.md" >}}) for newcomers that guides you step by step to your first contribution. If you are more experienced read on. You probably know what to do.
# Building from source
## Clone locally (for contributors):
git clone https://github.com/spf13/hugo
cd hugo
go get
Because Go expects all of your libraries to be found in either
`$GOROOT` or `$GOPATH`, it's helpful to symlink the project to one
of the following paths:
* `ln -s /path/to/your/hugo $GOPATH/src/github.com/spf13/hugo`
* `ln -s /path/to/your/hugo $GOROOT/src/pkg/github.com/spf13/hugo`
## Running Hugo
cd /path/to/hugo
go install github.com/spf13/hugo/hugo
go run main.go
## Building Hugo
cd /path/to/hugo
go build -o hugo main.go
mv hugo /usr/local/bin/
# Showcase additions
You got your new website running and it's powered by Hugo? Great. You can add your website with a few steps to the [showcase](/showcase/).
First, make sure that you created a [fork](https://help.github.com/articles/fork-a-repo/) of Hugo on Github and cloned your fork on your local computer. Next, create a separate branch for your additions:
```
# You can choose a different descriptive branch name if you like
git checkout -b showcase-addition
```
Let's create a new document that contains some metadata of your homepage. Replace `example` in the following examples with something unique like the name of your website. Inside the terminal enter the following commands:
```
cd docs
hugo new showcase/example.md
```
You should find the new file at `content/showcase/example.md`. Open it in an editor. The file should contain a frontmatter with predefined variables like below:
```
---
date: 2016-02-12T21:01:18+01:00
description: ""
license: ""
licenseLink: ""
sitelink: http://spf13.com/
sourceLink: https://github.com/spf13/spf13.com
tags:
- personal
- blog
thumbnail: /img/spf13-tn.jpg
title: example
---
```
Add at least values for `sitelink`, `title`, `description` and a path for `thumbnail`.
Furthermore, we need to create the thumbnail of your website. **It's important that the thumbnail has the required dimensions of 600px by 400px.** Give your thumbnail a name like `example-tn.png`. Save it under `docs/static/img/`.
Check a last time that everything works as expected. Start Hugo's built-in server in order to inspect your local copy of the showcase in the browser:
hugo server
If everything looks fine, we are ready to commit your additions. For the sake of best practices, please make sure that your commit follows our [code contribution guideline](https://github.com/spf13/hugo#code-contribution-guideline).
git commit -m"docs: Add example.com to the showcase"
Last but not least, we're ready to create a [pull request](https://github.com/spf13/hugo/compare).
Don't forget to accept the contributor license agreement. Click on the yellow badge in the automatically added comment in the pull request.