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CONTRIBUTING.md

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Contributing

Changes to the CI Infrastructure

Changes to the CI Infrastructure are made to the main branch in this repository. Config branches use the ci.yml workflows to workflow_call the equivalent workflow that is in model-config-tests.

Dev and Release branches

Each configuration has a dev-* and a release-* branch. They differ in the CI checks that are run when pull requests are made to update the branch. Any branch starting with either dev-* or release-* are protected branches. You cannot (and should not) modify them directly or create new branches with names starting with either dev- or release-.

Dev

The dev-* branch is where a configuration is updated. Temporary branches should be created and a pull request made to update the dev-* branch. Quality assurance (QA) CI checks are run on pull requests to dev-* branches, but not reproducibility checks. There is no requirement that the version be updated when changes are made to the dev- branch. So the dev- branch of a configuration allows for smaller changes that can be accumulated before a PR is made to the respective release-* branch.

Release

Pull requests to the release-* branch should be made from the respective dev-* branch and are intended to create a new version of the configuration. These pull requests have CI quality assurance (QA) checks that ensure the model configuration is suitable for release. CI Model reproducibility checks are also conducted: a short test run of the configuration is checked for bitwise reproducibility. The success or otherwise of this check determines if a minor or major version bump is required.

It is expected that the version will be updated before the pull request can be merged. This in turn creates a new tag for that configuration branch. It can be confusing for users if there are a large number of versions of a configuration and it is of little benefit to them. For this reason the atomicity of updates to a released configuration should be minimised, i.e. updates should be meaningful.

Creation of a new ACCESS-OM3 Config

Config branches are entirely separate from the main history in this repository, except for a few files in .github. Note, you may need to be an Administrator to commit to release-* or dev-* branches directly.

Create a new dev branch

Create a new development branch with automated workflows (usually prefixed by dev-*) by adding the workflow file to the config branch:

git checkout dev-<new_branch_name>
git checkout main -- .github/workflows/ci.yml
git add .
git commit -m "Initial commit for config branch"
git push

### Create a new release branch

For a brand new configuration there is no existing `release-*` branch, so one needs to be created. Follow the pull request process outlined below to update the dev branch so that it is passing QA checks. At this point create a `release-*` branch from the `dev-` branch and `git push` it to the repository:

```bash
git checkout -b release-<config_name>
git push release-<config_name>

For the CI workflows to work correctly the release- branch needs to have a version set, and a reproducibility checksum committed. There is a convenience workflow for this purpose: Generate Initial Checksums. Click the "Run workflow" menu, fill in the fields and push the green "Run workflow" button.

Once the workflow is completed there should be a new commit on the release-* branch, and a tag for the specified version.

Once the release-* branch has been updated those changes need to be merged back into the dev-* branch. This step is only necessary when the release-* branch is updated independently of the dev-* branch.

Pull Request Process

Update dev config

  1. Make your changes, test them, and open a PR from a feature/change branch (or fork) to the dev-* branch of a particular configuration.
  2. QA checks will run to ensure the configuration meets criteria for a released configuration, and to ensure consistency of released configurations.
  3. Fix the problems identified in the QA checks, commit and push to the PR branch.
  4. Once all checks pass the pull request branch can be merged.
  5. Consider making a PR to the equivalent release-* branch.

Note: If this is a brand new configuration and there is no existing release-* branch you will need to create one first.

Update release config

  1. Open a PR from the dev-* branch of a particular configuration to the equivalent release-* branch
  2. QA checks will run to ensure the configuration meets criteria for a released configuration, and to ensure consistency of released configurations.
  3. Checks will also run to test if changes break reproducibility with the current major version config tag on the target branch. For example, if you are opening a PR on the release-025deg_jra55do_ryf branch, and the last tagged version on this branch is release-025deg_jra55do_ryf-1.2, the checksums between the config in your PR and the checksum in the config tag are compared.
  4. A comment will be posted on the PR when this is completed, notifying you whether the checksums match (in this example meaning a minor bump to *-1.3), or are different (meaning a major bump to *-2.0).
  5. Optionally, you can now modify your PR and get more reproducibility checks. Particularly in the case where bitwise reproducibility should be retained this is an opportunity to modify the configuration to enable this.
  6. Bump the version using the !bump [major|minor] command depending on the result of the reproducibility check. Additionally, if the checksums are different, the updated checksum will be automatically committed to the PR. Bumping the version in some way is a requirement before the PR will be mergable.
  7. Merge the PR