Contributing

We welcome contributions to the Financial Debt Optimizer project! This page provides information for developers and contributors.

For detailed contribution guidelines, please see our CONTRIBUTING.md file on GitHub.

Quick Start for Contributors

  1. Fork the repository on GitHub

  2. Clone your fork locally:

    git clone https://github.com/yourusername/financial-debt_optimizer.git
cd financial-debt_optimizer

  3. Set up development environment:

    python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate  # On Windows: venv\Scripts\activate
pip install -e ".[dev]"

  4. Make your changes and test them

  5. Submit a pull request with your improvements

Types of Contributions

We appreciate all types of contributions:

  • Bug reports and issue identification

  • Feature requests and enhancement ideas

  • Code contributions including bug fixes and new features

  • Documentation improvements

  • Test coverage expansion

  • Performance optimizations

  • User experience improvements

Development Setup

Prerequisites: - Python 3.8 or higher - Git - Text editor or IDE

Installation:

git clone https://github.com/bryankemp/financial-debt_optimizer.git
cd financial-debt_optimizer
python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -e ".[dev]"

Running Tests:

pytest

Building Documentation:

cd docs
make html

Code Style

We follow PEP 8 style guidelines with some project-specific conventions. Please:

  • Run black for code formatting

  • Use pylint for code quality checks

  • Add docstrings for new functions and classes

  • Include type hints where appropriate

  • Write tests for new functionality

Pull Request Process

  1. Create a feature branch from main

  2. Make your changes with clear, descriptive commits

  3. Add tests for new functionality

  4. Update documentation as needed

  5. Ensure all tests pass

  6. Submit pull request with detailed description

For complete details, see CONTRIBUTING.md.

Reporting Issues

When reporting bugs or requesting features, please use our GitHub Issues page.

Include: - Clear description of the issue - Steps to reproduce (for bugs) - Expected vs actual behavior - Your environment details - Sample data (remove sensitive information)

Communication

  • GitHub Issues: For bug reports and feature requests

  • GitHub Discussions: For questions and general discussion

  • Pull Requests: For code contributions

  • Email: For security issues or private matters

We aim to respond to all contributions within a few days.

Thank you for helping make Financial Debt Optimizer better!