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

-  Open Source PDK information
-  Open Source Designs
-  Useful scripts
-  Tool improvements
-  New tools
-  Improving documentation including this document
-  Star our project and repos so we can see the number of people
   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 in the spirit of OpenROAD’s permissively 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.

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`_. In the `flow directory`_ you will see a directory
for `designs`_ with Makefiles to run them, and one for PDK `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`_. If you find code that is not
following this guide, within each file that you edit, follow the style in
that file. Please pay careful attention to the :ref:`tool-checklist` for
all code. If you want to add or improve functionality in OpenROAD please
start with the top level `app`_ 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
:doc:`document <DeveloperGuide>` to work with the app and its submodule
repos in an efficient way.

Please pay attention to the `test directory`_ and be sure to add tests
for any code changes that you make with open sourceable PDK and design
information. We provide the nandgate45 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`_ 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.

.. If you want to add a new tool please look in the
.. `src/tool <https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project/OpenROAD/tree/add_tool/src/tool>`__
.. directory of the add_tool branch for an example of how to add one.

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`_ 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 sub components, 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
as an example of how to do so. Take a look at the `cmake file`_ which
automatically sources the tcl code and the `tcl code`_ itself.

Questions
---------

You can file git issues to ask questions, file issues or you can contact
us via email openroad at eng.ucsd.edu

.. _`OpenROAD-flow-scripts`: https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project/OpenROAD-flow-scripts/
.. _`flow directory`: https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project/OpenROAD-flow-scripts/tree/master/flow
.. _`designs`: https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project/OpenROAD-flow-scripts/tree/master/flow/designs
.. _`platforms`: https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project/OpenROAD-flow-scripts/tree/master/flow/platforms
.. _`Google C++ style guide`: https://google.github.io/styleguide/cppguide.html
.. _`app`: https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project/OpenROAD/
.. _`test directory`: https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project/OpenROAD/tree/master/test
.. _`examples`: https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project/OpenROAD/blob/master/test/gcd_nangate45.tcl
.. _`cmake file`: https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project/OpenROAD/blob/master/src/CMakeLists.txt
.. _`tcl code`: https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project/OpenROAD/blob/master/src/pdngen/src/PdnGen.tcl