link/CONTRIBUTING.md

Contributing to Runic Gateway — uo-link sidecar

Thanks for your interest in contributing! This repo is the Rust sidecar half of the game bridge: it terminates the loopback link from the ServUO shard and exposes the WebSocket + REST API the website consumes.

By participating you agree to abide by our Code of Conduct.

Ways to contribute

• Report a bug or request a feature through the issue tracker (issue templates are provided).
• Improve the code or docs by opening a pull request (see below).
• Never report a security vulnerability in a public issue — see SECURITY.md. The sidecar is the only network-facing part of the bridge, so its security matters.

Development setup

Prerequisites: a recent stable Rust toolchain (install via rustup).

The sidecar is a standard cargo crate under sidecar/:

cd sidecar
cp sidecar.toml.example sidecar.toml   # then edit
cargo build --release                  # binary at target/release/uo-link-sidecar
cargo run --release

See sidecar/README.md for configuration and the wire protocol. The loopback JSON protocol shared with the ServUO plugin (RunicGateway/servuo-plugins) is a compatibility contract — the canonical spec lives in the docs repo. If you change an event or command, keep both sides and the spec in sync.

Checks

Please make sure the crate builds cleanly and is formatted and lint-clean before opening a PR:

cargo fmt --all
cargo clippy --all-targets -- -D warnings
cargo test
cargo build --release

Branch & PR workflow

1. Branch from main with a descriptive name (feature/…, fix/…, docs/…, chore/…).
2. Keep changes focused; small PRs are easier to review.
3. Push and open a pull request against main. Fill out the PR template, including the AI-assisted contributions disclosure.
4. A maintainer will review; address feedback with follow-up commits.

Commit messages

We use Conventional Commits — type(scope): summary. Note the release workflow (.gitea/workflows/release.yml) derives versions from conventional commits on main, so accurate feat: / fix: prefixes matter here.

AI-assisted contributions (disclosure required)

This project is developed openly with AI assistance, and we ask the same transparency of everyone. If you used an AI tool (Claude, Copilot, ChatGPT, Cursor, etc.) to help produce a contribution, you must disclose it:

• Tick the AI-usage box in the pull-request template and name the tool(s).
• Mark AI-authored commits with a trailer, e.g. Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com> or Assisted-By: <tool>.
• You remain responsible for every line you submit: review it, understand it, and make sure it is correct and that you have the right to contribute it.

Disclosed AI assistance is welcome. Undisclosed AI-generated contributions are not, and may be closed.

License

Runic Gateway is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later (see LICENSE.md). By submitting a contribution you agree that it is licensed under the same terms (inbound = outbound) and that you have the right to contribute it.