Learning Path: Contributor

For: Developers who want to contribute code, documentation, or improvements to ReasonKit

This learning path guides you through contributing to the ReasonKit open source project.

🎯 Goal

Make your first contribution to ReasonKit and become an active contributor.

📚 Path Overview

Phase 1: Setup (30 minutes)

1. Development Setup - Get the development environment running
2. Architecture Overview - Understand the codebase structure
3. Code Style - Learn ReasonKit’s coding standards

Outcome: You can build and run ReasonKit from source.

Phase 2: Quality Gates (30 minutes)

4. Testing - Run and write tests
5. Quality Gates - Understand the 5 mandatory gates
   • Build: cargo build --release
   • Lint: cargo clippy -- -D warnings
   • Format: cargo fmt --check
   • Test: cargo test
   • Bench: cargo bench (no >5% regression)

Outcome: You can verify your changes meet quality standards.

Phase 3: First Contribution (1-2 hours)

6. Contributing Guidelines - How to contribute
7. Pull Request Process - Submit your first PR
8. Code Review Process - What to expect

Outcome: You’ve made your first contribution.

Phase 4: Deep Dive (2-4 hours)

9. Architecture - Deep understanding of system design
10. Custom ThinkTools - How ThinkTools work internally
11. Performance Optimization - Performance best practices
12. Rust Supremacy Doctrine - Why Rust-first

Outcome: You can contribute to core functionality.

🛠️ Development Workflow

Daily Development

# Clone repository
git clone https://github.com/reasonkit/reasonkit-core
cd reasonkit-core

# Build
cargo build --release

# Run tests
cargo test

# Run quality gates
./scripts/quality_metrics.sh

# Run benchmarks
cargo bench

Making Changes

1. Create a branch:

   git checkout -b feature/your-feature-name
   

2. Make changes following code style guidelines

3. Run quality gates:

   cargo build --release
   cargo clippy -- -D warnings
   cargo fmt --check
   cargo test
   

4. Commit with clear message:

   git commit -m "feat: Add your feature description"
   

5. Push and create PR:

   git push origin feature/your-feature-name
   

📋 Contribution Areas

Good First Issues

• Documentation improvements
• Test coverage additions
• Bug fixes in non-critical paths
• CLI UX improvements
• Example scripts

Advanced Contributions

• New ThinkTool modules
• Performance optimizations
• LLM provider integrations
• Storage backend improvements
• Protocol engine enhancements

🎯 Quality Standards

All contributions must pass:

1. ✅ Build - Compiles without errors
2. ✅ Lint - No clippy warnings
3. ✅ Format - Code formatted with rustfmt
4. ✅ Test - All tests pass
5. ✅ Bench - No performance regressions

Quality Score Target: 8.0/10 minimum

📖 Related Documentation

• Contributing Guidelines - How to contribute
• Development Setup - Environment setup
• Code Style - Coding standards
• CONTRIBUTING.md - Complete contributor guide

🎓 Next Steps

After completing this path:

• Find an issue that matches your skills
• Make your first contribution
• Join the Discord community
• Become a maintainer

Estimated Time: 4-7 hours
Difficulty: Intermediate to Advanced
Prerequisites: Rust programming experience, familiarity with Git