Contributing Guidelines

Thank you for looking into contributing to the Integrated Methane Inversion (IMI)! The IMI is a grass-roots model that relies on contributions from community members like you.

We use GitHub and ReadTheDocs

We use GitHub to host the IMI source code, to track issues, user questions, and feature requests, and to accept pull requests: https://github.com/geoschem/integrated_methane_inversion. Please help out as you can in response to issues and user questions.

IMI documentation can be found at imi.readthedocs.io.

When should I submit updates?

Submit bug fixes right away, as these will be given the highest priority. Please see Support Guidelines for more information.

Submit updates (code and/or data) for mature model developments once you have submitted a paper on the topic.

The practical aspects of submitting code updates are listed below.

How can I submit updates?

We use GitHub Flow, so all changes happen through pull requests. This workflow is described here.

As the author you are responsible for:

Testing your changes
Updating the user documentation (if applicable)
Supporting issues and questions related to your changes

Process for submitting code updates

Create or log into your GitHub account.
Fork the IMI repository into your Github account.
Clone your forked repository to your computer system.
Add your modifications into a new branch off the main branch.
Test your update thoroughly and make sure that it works. For structural updates we recommend performing a difference test (i.e. testing against the prior version) in order to ensure that identical results are obtained).
Review the coding conventions and checklists for code and data updates listed below.
Create a pull request in GitHub.
The IMI development team will review your updates and merge them into the development branch for an upcoming IMI version. They will also validate your updates with a benchmark simulation.
If the benchmark simulations reveal a problem with your update, the team will request that you take further corrective action.

Coding conventions

The IMI codebase is open source and includes contributions from many people and multiple organizations. Therefore, some inconsistent conventions are inevitable, but we ask that you do your best to be consistent with nearby code.

Checklist for submitting code updates

Include thorough comments in all submitted code.
Include full citations for references at the top of relevant source code modules.
Remove extraneous code updates (e.g. testing options, other science).
Submit any related code or configuration files for GCHP and/or GEOS-Chem Classic to the https://github.com/geoschem/geos-chem repository.

Checklist for submitting data files

Choose a final file naming convention before submitting data files for inclusion.
Make sure that all netCDF files adhere to the COARDS conventions.
Concatenate netCDF files to reduce the number of files that need to be opened. This results in more efficient I/O operations.
Chunk and deflate netCDF files in order to improve file I/O.
Include an updated HEMCO configuration file corresponding to the new data.
Include a README file detailing data source, contents, etc.
Include script(s) used to process original data.
Include a summary or description of the expected results (e.g. emission totals for each species).

Also follow these additional steps to ensure that your data can be read by GCHP:

All netCDF data variables should be of type float (aka REAL*4) or double (aka REAL*8).
Use a recent reference datetime (i.e. after 1900-01-01) for the netCDF time:units attribute.
The first time value in each file should be 0, corresponding with the reference datetime.

How can I request a new feature?

We accept feature requests through issues on GitHub. To request a new feature, open a new issue. Please include all the information that might be relevant, including the motivation for the feature.

How can I report a bug?

Please see Support Guidelines.

Where can I ask for help?

Please see Support Guidelines.