paseo/CONTRIBUTING.md

Contributing to Paseo

Thanks for taking the time to contribute.

How this project works

Paseo is a BDFL project. Product direction, scope, and what ships are the maintainer's call.

This means:

• PRs submitted without prior discussion will likely be rejected, heavily modified, or scoped down.
• The maintainer may rewrite, split, cherry-pick from, or close any PR at their discretion.
• There is no obligation to merge a PR as-submitted, regardless of code quality.

This is not meant to discourage contributions — it is meant to set clear expectations so nobody wastes their time.

How to contribute

1. Open an issue first. Describe the problem or improvement. Get a thumbs up before writing code.
2. Keep it small. One bug, one flow, one focused change.
3. Open a PR once there is alignment on scope.

If you want to propose a direction change, start a conversation.

Before you start

Please read these first:

• README.md
• docs/ARCHITECTURE.md
• docs/DEVELOPMENT.md
• docs/CODING_STANDARDS.md
• docs/TESTING.md
• CLAUDE.md

What is most helpful

The highest-signal contributions right now are:

• bug fixes
• windows and linux specific fixes
• regression fixes
• doc improvements
• packaging / platform fixes
• focused UX improvements that fit the existing product direction
• tests that lock down important behavior

Scope expectations

Please keep PRs narrow.

Good:

• fix one bug
• improve one flow
• add one focused panel or command
• tighten one piece of UI

Bad:

• combine multiple product ideas in one PR
• bundle unrelated refactors with a feature
• sneak in roadmap decisions

If a contribution contains multiple ideas, split it up.

Product fit matters

Paseo is an opinionated product.

When reviewing contributions, the bar is not just:

• is this useful?
• is this well implemented?

It is also:

• does this fit Paseo?
• does this add product surface that will be hard to maintain?
• does the value justify the maintenance surface it adds?
• does this solve a common need or over-serve an edge case?
• does this preserve the product's current direction?

Development setup

Prerequisites

• Node.js matching .tool-versions
• npm workspaces

Start local development

# runs both daemon and expo app
npm run dev

Useful commands:

npm run dev:server
npm run dev:app
npm run dev:desktop
npm run dev:website
npm run cli -- ls -a -g

Read docs/DEVELOPMENT.md for build-sync gotchas, local state, ports, and daemon details.

Multi-platform testing

Paseo ships to mobile (iOS/Android), web, and desktop (Electron). Every UI change must be tested on mobile and web at minimum, and desktop too if relevant. This is a multi-platform codebase and things that look fine on one surface regularly break on another.

Common checks:

npm run typecheck
npm run test --workspaces --if-present

Important rules:

• always run npm run typecheck after changes
• tests should be deterministic
• prefer real dependencies over mocks when possible
• do not make breaking WebSocket / protocol changes
• app and daemon versions in the wild lag each other, so compatibility matters

If you touch protocol or shared client/server behavior, read the compatibility notes in CLAUDE.md.

Coding standards

Paseo has explicit standards. Please follow them.

The full guide lives in docs/CODING_STANDARDS.md.

PR checklist

Before opening a PR, make sure:

• there was prior discussion and alignment on scope (issue or conversation)
• the change is focused — one idea per PR
• the PR description explains what changed and why
• UI changes include screenshots or videos for every affected platform (mobile, web, desktop)
• UI changes have been tested on mobile and web at minimum
• typecheck passes
• tests pass, or you clearly explain what could not be run
• relevant docs were updated if needed

Communication

If you are unsure whether something fits, ask first.

That is especially true for:

• new core UX
• naming / terminology changes
• new extension points
• new orchestration models
• anything that would be hard to remove later

Early alignment is much better than a large PR that is expensive for everyone to unwind.

Forks are fine

If you want to explore a different product direction, a fork is completely fine.

Paseo is open source on purpose. Not every idea needs to land in the main repo to be valuable.