| # Getting Involved | |
| Thank you for taking the time to read this document and to contribute. | |
| The OpenROAD project will not reach all of its objectives without help! | |
| Possible ways to contribute in the scope of OpenROAD Flow: | |
| - Open-source PDK information | |
| - Open-source Designs | |
| - Useful scripts | |
| - Star our project and repos so we can see the number of people | |
| who are interested | |
| ## Licensing Contributions | |
| As much as possible, all contributions should be licensed using the BSD3 | |
| license. You can propose another license if you must, but contributions | |
| made with BSD3 fit best with the spirit of OpenROAD's permissive open-source | |
| philosophy. We do have exceptions in the project, but over time we hope | |
| that all contributions will be BSD3, or some other permissive license such as MIT | |
| or Apache2.0. | |
| ## Contributing Open Source PDK information and Designs | |
| If you have new design or PDK information to contribute, please add this | |
| to the repo | |
| [OpenROAD-flow-scripts](https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project/OpenROAD-flow-scripts/). | |
| In the | |
| [flow directory](https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project/OpenROAD-flow-scripts/tree/master/flow) | |
| you will see a directory for | |
| [designs](https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project/OpenROAD-flow-scripts/tree/master/flow/designs) | |
| with Makefiles to run them, and one for PDK | |
| [platforms](https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project/OpenROAD-flow-scripts/tree/master/flow/platforms) | |
| used by the designs. If you add a new PDK platform, be sure to add at | |
| least one design that uses it. | |
| ## Contributing Scripts and Code | |
| We follow the [Google C++ style guide](https://google.github.io/styleguide/cppguide.html). | |
| If you find code in our project that does *not* follow this guide, then within each file that | |
| you edit, follow the style in that file. | |
| Please pay careful attention to the | |
| [tool checklist](https://openroad.readthedocs.io/en/latest/contrib/DeveloperGuide.html#tool-checklist) for all code. If you want | |
| to add or improve functionality in OpenROAD, please start with the | |
| top-level [app](https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project/OpenROAD/) repo. You | |
| can see in the `src` directory that submodules exist pointing to tested | |
| versions of the other relevant repos in the project. Please look at the | |
| tool workflow in the developer guide [document](DeveloperGuide.md) | |
| to work with the app and its submodule repos in an efficient way. | |
| Please run clang-format on all the C++ source files that you change, before | |
| committing. In the root directory of the OpenROAD repository there is the | |
| file `.clang-format` that defines all coding formatting rules. | |
| Please pay attention to the | |
| [test directory](https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project/OpenROAD/tree/master/test) | |
| and be sure to add tests for any code changes that you make, using open-source | |
| PDK and design information. We provide the `nangate45` PDK in | |
| the OpenROAD-flow-scripts repo to help with this. Pull requests with | |
| code changes are unlikely to be accepted without accompanying test | |
| cases. There are many | |
| [examples](https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project/OpenROAD/blob/master/test/gcd_nangate45.tcl) | |
| tests. Each repo has a test directory as well with tests you should run | |
| and add to if you modify something in one of the submodules. | |
| For changes that claim to improve QoR or PPA, please run many tests and | |
| ensure that the improvement is not design-specific. There are designs in | |
| the | |
| [OpenROAD-flow-scripts](https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project/OpenROAD-flow-scripts/) | |
| repo which can be used unless the improvement is technology-specific. | |
| Do not add runtime or build dependencies without serious thought. For a | |
| project like OpenROAD with many application subcomponents, the software | |
| architecture can quickly get out of control. Changes with lots of new | |
| dependencies which are not necessary are less likely to be integrated. | |
| If you want to add Tcl code to define a new tool command, look at [pdngen](https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project/OpenROAD/tree/master/src/pdn) | |
| as an example of how to do so. Take a look at the | |
| [CMakeLists file](https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project/OpenROAD/blob/master/src/CMakeLists.txt) | |
| which automatically sources the Tcl code and the | |
| [Tcl file](https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project/OpenROAD/blob/master/src/pdn/src/pdn.tcl) | |
| itself. | |
| To accept contributions, we require each commit to be made with a DCO (Developer | |
| Certificate of Origin) attached. | |
| When you commit you add the `-s` flag to your commit. For example: | |
| ``` shell | |
| git commit -s -m "test dco with -s" | |
| ``` | |
| This will append a statement to your commit comment that attests to the DCO. GitHub | |
| has built in the `-s` option to its command line since use of this is so | |
| pervasive. The promise is very basic, certifying that you know that you | |
| have the right to commit the code. Please read the [full statement | |
| here](https://developercertificate.org/). | |
| ## Questions | |
| Please refer to our [FAQs](../user/FAQS.md). | |