Contributing

Tela is an early-stage project moving fast. Contributions are welcome but the bar is real: the code base has a "no cruft, no backward compatibility until 1.0" policy that drives a lot of the decisions, and PRs need to land clean (build, vet, gofmt, race-clean tests, no stray files).

Setting up a dev environment

git clone https://github.com/paulmooreparks/tela
cd tela
go build ./...
go vet ./...
go test ./...
gofmt -l .          # should print nothing

For TelaVisor specifically:

cd cmd/telagui
wails build         # outputs to ./build/bin/telavisor.exe

You will need Wails v2 installed.

What to read first

  • CLAUDE.md -- the project's guiding principles, coding conventions, API style, and the list of architectural review items
  • Why a connectivity fabric -- the design rationale for the core architecture
  • ROADMAP-1.0.md -- the 1.0 readiness checklist (anything unticked is fair game)
  • STATUS.md -- the live traceability matrix from design sections to implementation

Filing issues

Use the GitHub issue tracker. For security issues, see SECURITY.md once it exists (it is on the 1.0 blocker list).

Pre-1.0 ground rules

  • No backward-compatibility shims. If a name or shape is wrong, fix it everywhere in one commit.
  • Delete duplicate code paths. When a new shape replaces an old one, the old one goes in the same change.
  • No "deprecated" markings yet. Pre-1.0 there is no deprecation; there is only "the right shape" and "the wrong shape."

After 1.0, the rules invert: deprecation will be slow and deliberate, and backward compatibility will be maintained religiously. Anything left in the tree at 1.0 becomes a permanent maintenance burden, so we cut aggressively now.