Getting Started as a Contributor

There are a lot of guides on the Internet that will show different aspects of what is described here, but this article will focus on a simple way to get started using the workflow we use for DSC modules and DSC resources within the DSC Community.

After you read through this guide, then please continue with the guide Contributor, especially the section Understand the coding workflow.

Table of Contents

Quick steps

Here are some quick steps to get started building and testing a project. The detailed steps in the rest of this guide are required for contributing.

Windows

This assumes a clean installation of Windows 11 release 22H2 Feb 2023 or later with only Windows PowerShell available.

  1. Install App Installer (by Microsoft) from the Microsoft Store (to get winget).

    NOTE: Newer versions of Windows have WinGet preinstalled, then this step is not required.

  2. Install Git 
    winget install Git.Git
  3. Allow execution of scripts. 
    Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Scope CurrentUser
  4. Make a local folder for cloning projects 
    mkdir c:/source
cd c:/source
  5. Clone the git repo (change URI as needed) 
    git clone https://github.com/dsccommunity/SqlServerDsc
  6. Move into the local repository folder 
    cd ./SqlServerDsc
  7. Get informative messaged (optional) 
    $InformationPreference = 'Continue'
  8. Resolve dependencies. This will install the required NuGet package provider, with all other dependencies being saved into the project’s output folder.

    NOTE: If the project is dependent on pre-releases and the error Find-Module: A parameter cannot be found that matches parameter name 'AllowPrereleaseVersions' is thrown, restart the Windows PowerShell session and run the command again. This is due to the old version of module PackageManagement is still available in the session (even when we remove it) so PowerShellGet calls the wrong version of the command Find-Package.

    .\build.ps1 -ResolveDependency -Tasks noop
  9. Build the project. 
    .\build.ps1 -Tasks build
  10. Test the project. 
    .\build.ps1 -Tasks test

Create free GitHub account

Create a free GitHub account by browsing to GitHub and clicking on the Sign up button.

GitHub SignUp

Although enabling 2-factor authentication on your GitHub account is not required to contribute, it is recommended.

Install Visual Studio Code

Although there are many PowerShell editors available and everyone has their own preference, most of the processes described here assume the use of Visual Studio Code. Using Visual Studio Code when working on DSC Resource modules has added benefits such as being able to detect and highlight some style guideline violations.

To install Visual Studio code visit the official site code.visualstudio.com.

Windows

To install using:

Official package

The installation is straightforward using a wizard type of installation. Normally all defaults values suggested by the wizard can be used.

Chocolatey

See Chocolatey for prerequisites to use choco.

choco install vscode
WinGet

Newer versions of Windows have WinGet preinstalled. If it is not installed make sure to install App Installer (by Microsoft) from the Microsoft Store to use winget.

NOTE: To use code from command-line you might need to logout and login again after installation for environment variable PATH to be updated.

winget install vscode

Install Visual Studio Code PowerShell Extension

To be able to write PowerShell code in Visual Studio Code the extension need to be installed.

code --install-extension ms-vscode.PowerShell

NOTE: This step is only relevant if Visual Studio Code was installed in the previous step.

Install Git

Windows

To install using:

Official package

Download and install Git for Windows from the official site git-scm.com.

The installation is straightforward using a wizard type of installation. Normally all defaults values suggested by the wizard can be used unless your environment need something special. There is one exception and that is that it might suit you better to use Visual Studio Code as the default editor for Git instead of Vim.

Git select components Git default editor Git use from Commandline Git use transport Git line endings Git terminal emulator Git extra options Git experimental

After the installation you can run this in PowerShell and it should return the version of git if it was installed correctly.

PS> git --version
git version 2.24.1.windows.2

Git for Windows installed a credential manager that will help you connect using your GitHub credentials. It will popup the first time your credentials are needed, for example when pushing to a repository on GitHub.

Chocolatey

See Chocolatey for prerequisites to use choco.

choco install git
WinGet

Newer versions of Windows have WinGet preinstalled. If it is not installed make sure to install App Installer (by Microsoft) from the Microsoft Store to use winget.

winget install Git.Git

Configure Git

Now you need to setup your name and e-mail in the global settings. This is used when you commit and push changes to a repository.

git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "your@emailaddress.com"

We also need set how line endings should be treated.

git config --global core.autocrlf true

Install PowerShell Module posh-git

This is optional but helps with tab completion and better visualization of what branch you are working on when using PowerShell.

Run this in PowerShell.

Install-Module posh-git -Scope CurrentUser -Force
Import-Module -Name posh-git

Then to make sure the module is loaded each time you start PowerShell, add the import of the module to your PowerShell profile script.

code $profile

In the file that opened up in Visual Studio Code, add the following and save the file.

Import-Module -Name posh-git

Install GitVersion

The application GitVersion is used to automatically increase the version in the build pipeline. It is optional, if it is not installed the build version will always show as 0.0.1 when running the build locally, but it is still possible to contribute without this installed.

Windows

To install using:

Chocolatey

See Chocolatey for prerequisites to use choco.

Once you have Chocolatey installed you can install GitVersion using the following:

NOTE: You must be an elevated administrator to run choco install.

choco install GitVersion.Portable
DotNet

To be able to install GitVersion the command dotnet must first be installed using WinGet.

NOTE: Newer versions of Windows have WinGet preinstalled. If it is not installed make sure to install App Installer (by Microsoft) from the Microsoft Store to use winget.

winget install dotnet-sdk-6

Make sure there is a Nuget source listed by running:

dotnet nuget list source

If it does not return any Nuget source, add the Nuget.org source by running the following:

dotnet nuget add source https://api.nuget.org/v3/index.json -n nuget.org

Then we install GitVersion using dotnet.

Note: To use dotnet from command-line you might need to logout and login again after installation for environment variable PATH to be updated.

dotnet tool install --global GitVersion.Tool

macOS

You install GitVersion using the following:

brew install gitversion

NOTE: You need install Homebrew first if you do not have it installed already.

Linux (or Docker)

Using Homebrew

You install GitVersion using the following:

brew install gitversion

NOTE: You need install Homebrew first, if you do not have it installed already.

Using release package

If you don’t have or don’t want to use Homebrew, it is possible to install it from a release package directly.

  1. See if there are any prerequisites for the distribution you are using in Linux dependencies
  2. Get the package name and version to the correct release for the distribution you are using at GitVersion releases
  3. Run the commands below and replace with the correct package name and version from previous step.

NOTE: These steps have been verified in Ubuntu 16.04 and Ubuntu 20.04. In other distributions the folders and steps might vary.

#!/bin/bash

# Create a new folder under current user home folder
cd ~
mkdir gitversion
cd ~/gitversion

version="5.6.0"
release="gitversion-ubuntu.16.04-x64-5.6.0.tar.gz"

wget https://github.com/GitTools/GitVersion/releases/download/$version/$release

tar -xvf ./$release

# Make the gitversion file executable
chmod +x gitversion

# Create a soft link to be able to run it from anywhere
#  - Ubuntu 16.04:
sudo ln -sf $(pwd)/gitversion /usr/local/bin/gitversion
#  - Ubuntu 20.04 (might need to replace $(pwd) with full path):
sudo ln -s $(pwd)/gitversion /usr/local/bin/

# Now gitversion should work
cd /tmp
gitversion

If it returns Cannot find the .git directory then it has executed correctly. The first time it executes it can take a while.

Clone repository from GitHub

To clone a repository from GitHub you need the owner of the repository and the repository name. The owner for DSC Community repositories are dsccommunity and the repository name can be found in the list of modules

Once you have that information you can clone the repository by using

git clone https://github.com/{owner}/{repositoryName}

For example to clone the repository for the module ComputerManagementDsc into the folder c:\source.

cd c:\source
git clone https://github.com/dsccommunity/ComputerManagementDsc

This will make git to create a new directory with corresponding name to the repository name (e.g. ComputerManagementDsc). This new folder is called the local repository.

To see that the repository was cloned correctly then run git status in the local repository folder.

PS> cd c:\source\ComputerManagementDsc
PS> git status
On branch main
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/main'.

nothing to commit, working tree clean

Forking a repository on GitHub

To send changes from your local repository you first fork the upstream repository, because all changes must first be pushed to a working branch in your fork before sending in a pull request. To learn more about forks read the article Forking Projects.

To fork an upstream repository, e.g. the DSC module ComputerManagementDsc, browse to the same URL used when cloning, e.g. https://github.com/dsccommunity/ComputerManagementDsc.

To the right of the page you will find a button named Fork. Click that and GitHub will create a fork (repository) in your own GitHub account.

GitHub Fork Button

Adding the fork as a remote in the local repository

To be able to send changes (commit in a working branch) to a fork of an upstream repository you need to add a remote to the local repository.

To add a remote we use git remote add, a remote name, and the URL to the fork.

The remote name can be whatever we choose, but we assume you want to use my as the remote name for a remote pointing to your fork.

When GitHub creates a fork of an upstream repo it creates a repository in your GitHub account (means your are the owner of the fork). So the URL to the fork would be https://github.com/{yourGitHubAccountName}/{repositoryName}

So for example to add remote pointing to your fork of ComputerManagementDsc we run the following. Replace johlju with your actual GItHUb account name.

cd c:\source\ComputerManagementDsc
git remote add my https://github.com/johlju/ComputerManagementDsc`.

To verify that the remote was added correctly you can run the following.

PS> git remote -v
my      https://github.com/johlju/ComputerManagementDsc (fetch)
my      https://github.com/johlju/ComputerManagementDsc (push)
origin  https://github.com/dsccommunity/ComputerManagementDsc (fetch)
origin  https://github.com/dsccommunity/ComputerManagementDsc (push)

Now you have two remote references:

  • The remote name origin pointing to the upstream repository.
  • The remote name my pointing to your fork of the upstream repository.

Making changes and pushing them to the fork

To make changes you should always use another branch than main to add those changes, let us call it the working branch. A working branch should normally be based on the branch main so that you can easily work on several other branches during the same period.

Creating a working branch separate from the default main branch will allow you to create other working branches off of branch main later while your other working branches is still open for code reviews.

Limiting your current working branch to a single issue will also both streamline the code review and reduce the possibility of merge conflicts.

You create a new working branch using the following command git checkout -b <working-branch-name> my/main. You should also track the branch main in your fork, e.g. my/main so that you will better see if the branch is behind or ahead in commits.

This will create a new local working branch in the local repository of ComputerManagementDsc, start tracking your fork’s main branch and then checkout (move) to the new branch.

cd c:\source\ComputerManagementDsc
git checkout main
git checkout -b my-working-branch my/main

You can now start making changes in your local branch. You can easily start Visual Studio Code and get it to automatically load the folder by running

cd c:\source\ComputerManagementDsc
code .

When you have made changes you need to commit them to your local branch. Below we show how to commit and push using the command line, but it might be easier to commit (using git) from within Visual Studio Code. How to do that can be seen in this video.

You can see the status of changes with git status. To commit all current changes (all modified files) you use git commit -a -m "<Commit message>".

-a argument tells Git to include all modified files in commit. -m argument specifies the commit message.

To commit all changes with a commit message Fix issue #123, you run the following.

git commit -a -m "Fix issue #123"

NOTE: You may make as many commits as you like. For example you can make just one commit for all changes, make a commit for each file you change, or a make a commit for each bug or feature if there are more than one you want to resolve. It is entirely up to you how, what and when you commit changes.

To push one or more commits containing your changes we use git push <remote-name>. So to push the local working branch in your local repository to the fork we do the following.

git push my

This will create a new branch in the fork, or update the existing branch if it was created in a previous push.

See the contributing guidelines for more information on how to send in a pull request from a branch in your fork.

Make changes to an existing pull request of yours

There might be a need to update the pull request, for example due to a review comment, CI tests failed, or you realized that you missed something.

If you need to make more changes to a pull request you just push more commits to your working branch as mentioned in Making changes and pushing them to the fork

Pushing a new commit to your working branch in your fork will automatically update any pull request that is based on that working branch.

Switch between local working branches

To see all branches run git branch -a, and to see working branches run git branch -v.

Active branch is marked with an asterisk (*). The argument -a tells Git to show both local and remote branches.

To switch to another working branch you use git checkout <branch-name>.

For example to switch to the working branch fix-issue-#123 we do the following.

git checkout fix-issue-#123

Delete a branch

Once a pull request with your changes have been successfully merged into the upstream repository you can delete the working branch. It is no longer needed at that point, any further work requires a new working branch.

To delete your branch follow these steps:

  1. Run git checkout main in the command prompt. This ensures that you aren’t in the branch to be deleted (which isn’t allowed).
  2. Next, type git branch -d branch-name in the command prompt. This will delete the branch on your local machine only if it has been successfully merged to the upstream repository. You can override this behavior with the –D flag, which always deletes the local branch.
  3. Finally, type git push my :branch-name in the command prompt (a space before the colon and no space after it). This will delete the branch on your GitHub fork.

Updated on 28 Jan 2019