Revamp CONTRIBUTING.md by C-Achard · Pull Request #3241 · DeepLabCut/DeepLabCut

@C-Achard

Rewrites and restructures CONTRIBUTING.md to improve onboarding and developer workflow. Adds clear sections for ways to contribute, development setup (fork/clone, installing dev dependencies via pyproject group, editable installs, and ./reinstall.sh), working on the code (verifying local import), code style and pre-commit setup, testing (pytest), and pull request guidelines. Encourages contributions from underrepresented groups, clarifies documentation and header procedures, and documents review process, support channels, and acknowledgements to contributors.

@C-Achard self-assigned this

Mar 13, 2026

@C-Achard

Replace the ad-hoc pip install line with an editable dev install (`pip install -e . --group dev`) to standardize the development environment. Clarify that only steering committee members may edit `NOTICE.yml`. Remove the standalone `black .` example and direct contributors to follow `CONTRIBUTING.md` for testing and pre-commit checks. Also add a `bash` code fence to the coverage example for consistency.

@C-Achard

Fix CONTRIBUTING.md to state the script builds a wheel using setup.py instead of the 'build' tool. This corrects the documentation and clarifies the local install refresh workflow when packaged resources need to be updated.

@C-Achard

deruyter92

Split a malformed blockquote line into two proper blockquote lines to fix Markdown rendering and remove an inline '>' that broke the quote. This is a formatting-only change to improve readability; no content was altered.
Add a 'Draft pull requests' section to CONTRIBUTING.md explaining that draft PRs indicate work in progress, encouraging requests for early reviews/feedback, clarifying draft status isn't a judgment of quality, and noting many PRs remain drafts for most of their lifetime.

C-Achard