AwesomeXiangQi/Pikafish-2026-09-06/CONTRIBUTING.md

Contributing to Pikafish

Welcome to the Pikafish project! We are excited that you are interested in contributing. This document outlines the guidelines and steps to follow when making contributions to Pikafish.

Table of Contents

• Building Pikafish
• Making Contributions
  • Reporting Issues
  • Submitting Pull Requests
• Code Style
• Community and Communication
• License

Building Pikafish

In case you do not have a C++ compiler installed, you can follow the instructions from our wiki.

• Linux
• Windows
• macOS

Making Contributions

Reporting Issues

If you find a bug, please open an issue on the issue tracker. Be sure to include relevant information like your operating system, build environment, and a detailed description of the problem.

Please note that Pikafish's development is not focused on adding new features. Thus any issue regarding missing features will potentially be closed without further discussion.

Submitting Pull Requests

• Functional changes need to be tested on fishtest. See Creating my First Test for more details. The accompanying pull request should include a link to the test results and the new bench.

• Non-functional changes (e.g. refactoring, code style, documentation) do not need to be tested on fishtest, unless they might impact performance.

• Provide a clear and concise description of the changes in the pull request description.

First time contributors should add their name to AUTHORS.

Pikafish's development is not focused on adding new features. Thus any pull request introducing new features will potentially be closed without further discussion.

Code Style

Changes to Pikafish C++ code should respect our coding style defined by .clang-format. You can format your changes by running make format. This requires clang-format version 20 to be installed on your system.

Community and Communication

• Join the Pikafish discord to discuss ideas, issues, and development.
• Participate in the Pikafish GitHub discussions for broader conversations.

License

By contributing to Pikafish, you agree that your contributions will be licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0. See Copying.txt for more details.

Thank you for contributing to Pikafish and helping us make it even better!