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Contributing

Thanks for your interest in improving Kite Ground Control! Bug reports, fixes, features, translations and documentation are all welcome.

Getting started

  1. Read Building from source and get a dev build running with just dev.
  2. For anything non-trivial, open an issue first to discuss the approach — it saves rework.
  3. Branch, make your change, run the checks, and open a pull request against master.

Before you open a PR

Run the static checks — the project leans on them heavily:

just check    # svelte-check + TypeScript + cargo check

CI runs the same checks (plus clippy) on every push and PR. PRs should be green before review.

Coding conventions

Frontend (Svelte 5 / TypeScript)

  • Runes only — $state, $derived, $effect, $props(), $bindable(). No legacy Svelte 4 (export let, $:, on:click); use onclick={…} and let { a } = $props().
  • No any in TypeScript.
  • All user-visible text goes through i18n — $t('section.key'). en.json is mandatory; other locales are optional (see Internationalisation below). Never hard-code UI text.
  • Reuse the shared UI framework — the Button, panel, toggle and stepper components and the theme tokens. Don't roll your own buttons/inputs. See UI framework & theme.
  • Keep page components thin; extract substantial UI into components.

Backend (Rust)

  • One feature per module folder; Tauri commands return Result<T, String>.
  • Database changes are incremental migrations (PRAGMA user_version) — never modify an existing migration.
  • Route diagnostics through the log facade at the right level; user-facing/error strings stay English.

Comments & scope

  • Keep changes focused; propose unrelated refactors separately.
  • Match the surrounding code's style and comment density.

Internationalisation

Kite ships in English, German and French. For contributions:

  • en.json is the source of truth and is required — every new or changed UI string must have its English key.
  • Other locales (de.json, fr.json) are optional but very welcome. Keeping them in sync is appreciated; an AI assistant makes this quick and is the recommended way to fill in translations.
  • Use named placeholders ({name}) for parameters, passed as an object.

Missing non-English keys fall back gracefully, so an English-only PR is fine — a maintainer (or you, with AI help) can top up the other languages afterwards.

Licensing & contributor terms

Kite Ground Control is licensed under GPL-3.0-or-later.

  • Every source file carries an SPDX header: 
    // SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-3.0-or-later
// Copyright (C) 2026 Marc Hoffmann (b14ckyy)
    Add it to any new source file you create.
  • By submitting a contribution you agree it is licensed under the project's GPL-3.0-or-later terms.

Note

The project may later adopt a formal Contributor License Agreement (CLA) to keep relicensing/ distribution options open. If that happens it will be documented here and in the repository; for now, contributions are accepted under the GPL-3.0-or-later license above.

Reporting bugs & ideas

Use the GitHub issue tracker. For bug reports, the in-app diagnostics log (Settings → Diagnostics) and your OS / autopilot / firmware versions help a lot — see Reporting a problem.