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Contributing to essential8

Source: CONTRIBUTING.md

Thank you for helping build reliable cardiovascular health scoring software.

Ways to contribute

  • Report a suspected reference-rule discrepancy.
  • Add or review independently derived validation fixtures.
  • Improve input validation, documentation, or package infrastructure.
  • Propose a reference adapter with a documented provider and source profile.

Reference rule changes

Reference rule pull requests require more than ordinary code review:

Open a reference-rule issue identifying the standard, metric, population, measurement pathway, and exact source location.

Code contributions

  • Follow snake_case naming and two-space indentation.
  • Keep public functions focused and type-stable.
  • Use namespace-qualified dependency calls in package code.
  • Add tests for new behavior and structured error classes.
  • Run devtools::document(), devtools::test(), and devtools::check() before submitting a pull request.

Pull requests

Keep changes focused. Describe the motivation clearly, verification performed, and any backward-compatibility implications. Do not mix a rule change with an unrelated refactor.