# Contribution Guidelines

Thank you for your interest in contributing to the documentation! You will be helping the open source community and other developers interested in learning more about Medusa and using it.

:::tip

This guide is specific to contributing to the documentation. If you’re interested in contributing to Medusa’s codebase, check out the [contributing guidelines in the Medusa GitHub repository](https://github.com/medusajs/medusa/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md).

:::

## Site Setup

The documentation website is built with [Docusaurus](https://docusaurus.io/), a framework that optimizes documentation creation. If you’re not familiar with Docusaurus, it’s recommended to check out the [Installation documentation](https://docusaurus.io/docs/installation) on their website to better understand Docusaurus, how it works, its structure, and more details.

The documentation codebase is hosted as part of the [medusa repository](https://github.com/medusajs/medusa) on GitHub. You’ll find the code that runs the docusaurus website under the [www/docs](https://github.com/medusajs/medusa/tree/master/www/docs) directory.

## Documentation Content

The documentation content is written in Markdown format and is located in the [docs/content](https://github.com/medusajs/medusa/tree/master/docs/content) directory of the same repository. If you’re not familiar with Markdown, check out [this cheat sheet](https://www.markdownguide.org/cheat-sheet/) for a quick start.

You’ll also find MDX files. MDX files combine the power of Markdown with React. So, the content of the file can contain JSX components and import statements, among other features. You can learn more about [MDX in docusaurus’s guide.](https://docusaurus.io/docs/markdown-features/react)

## What You Can Contribute To

- You can contribute to the Docusaurus codebase to add a new feature or fix a bug in the documentation website.
- You can contribute to the documentation content either by fixing errors you find or by adding documentation pages.

## What You Can’t Contribute To

The [Services Reference](/references/services/classes/AuthService) is an automatically generated API reference using Typedoc. So, you can’t contribute to it by making changes to its markdown files.

You can, however, contribute to the script generating it if you find any issues in it.

## Style Guide

When you contribute to the documentation content, make sure to follow the [documentation style guide](https://www.notion.so/Style-Guide-Docs-fad86dd1c5f84b48b145e959f36628e0).

## How to Contribute

If you’re fixing errors in an existing documentation page, you can scroll down to the end of the page and click on the “Edit this page” link. You’ll be redirected to the GitHub edit form of that page and you can make edits directly and submit a pull request (PR).

If you’re adding a new page or contributing to the codebase, fork the repository, create a new branch, and make all changes necessary in your repository. Then, once you’re done creating a PR in the Medusa repository.

For more details on how to contribute, check out [the contribution guidelines in the Medusa repository](https://github.com/medusajs/medusa/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md).

### Base Branch

When you make an edit to an existing documentation page or fork the repository to make changes to the documentation, you have to create a new branch.

Documentation contributions always use `master` as the base branch.

### Branch Name

Make sure that the branch name starts with `docs/`. For example, `docs/fix-services`.

### Pull Request Conventions

When you create a pull request, prefix the title with “docs:”. Make sure to keep “docs” in small letters.

<!-- vale off -->

In the body of the PR, explain clearly what the PR does. If the PR solves an issue, use [closing keywords](https://docs.github.com/en/issues/tracking-your-work-with-issues/linking-a-pull-request-to-an-issue#linking-a-pull-request-to-an-issue-using-a-keyword) with the issue number. For example, “Closes #1333”.

<!-- vale on -->

## Sidebar

When you add a new page to the documentation, you must add the new page in `www/docs/sidebars.js` under the `docsSidebar`. You can learn more about the syntax used [here](https://docusaurus.io/docs/sidebar/items).

### Terminology

When the documentation page is a conceptual or an overview documentation, the label in the sidebar should start with a noun.

When the documentation page is tutorial documentation, the label in the sidebar should start with a verb. Exceptions to this rule are integration documentation and upgrade guides.

### Character Count

The character count of the sidebar item's label must be at most twenty-seven characters. For the API Reference, the sidebar item's label must be at most twenty-five characters.

## Notes and Additional Information

When displaying notes and additional information on a documentation page, use [Admonitions](https://docusaurus.io/docs/markdown-features/admonitions). Make sure the type of admonition used matches the note’s importance to the current document.

If the note is something developers have to be careful of doing or not doing, use the `caution` or `danger` admonitions based on how critical it is.

If the note is defining something to the developer in case they’re not familiar with it, use the `info` admonition.

If the note displays helpful information and tips use the `tip` admonition.

If the admonition does not match any of the mentioned criteria, always default to the `note` admonition.

## Images

If you are adding images to a documentation page, you can host the image on [Imgur](https://imgur.com) for free.

## NPM and Yarn Code Blocks

If you’re adding code blocks that use NPM and Yarn, you must use the [npm2yarn syntax](https://docusaurus.io/docs/markdown-features/code-blocks#npm2yarn-remark-plugin).

For example:

~~~md
```bash npm2yarn
npm run start
```
~~~

The code snippet must be written using NPM, and the `npm2yarn` plugin will automatically transform it to Yarn.

### Expand Commands

<!-- vale off -->

Don't use commands in their abbreviated terms. For example, instead of `npm i` use `npm install`.

<!-- vale on -->

### Run Command

Make sure to always use the `run` command when the command runs a script.

<!-- vale off -->

For example, even though you can run the `start` script using NPM with `npm start`, however, to make sure it’s transformed properly to a Yarn command, you must add the `run` keyword before `start`.

<!-- vale on -->

### Global Option

When a command uses the global option `-g`, add it at the end of the NPM command to ensure that it’s transformed to a Yarn command properly. For example:

```bash npm2yarn
npm install @medusajs/medusa-cli -g
```

## Linting with Vale

Medusa uses Vale to lint documentation pages and perform checks on incoming PRs into the repository.

### Result of PR Checks

You can check the result of running the "lint" action on your PR by clicking the Details link next to it. You can find there all errors that you need to fix.

### Run Vale Locally

If you want to check your work locally, you can do that by:

1. [Installing Vale](https://vale.sh/docs/vale-cli/installation/) on your machine.
2. Change to the `docs` directory:

```bash
cd docs
```

3\. Run the `run-vale` script:

```bash
./run-vale.sh error
```

### VS Code Extension

To facilitate writing documentation, you can optionally use the [Vale VS Code extension](https://github.com/errata-ai/vale-vscode). This will show you any errors in your documentation while writing it.

### Linter Exceptions

If it's needed to break some style guide rules in a document, you can wrap the parts that the linter shouldn't scan with the following comments in the `md` or `mdx` files:

```md
<!-- vale off -->

content that shouldn't be scanned for errors here...

<!-- vale on -->
```

You can also disable specific rules. For example:

```md
<!-- vale docs.Numbers = NO -->

Medusa supports Node versions 14 and 16.

<!-- vale docs.Numbers = YES -->
```

If you use this in your PR, you must justify its usage.

## Need Additional Help

If you need any additional help while contributing, you can join Medusa's [Discord server](https://discord.gg/medusajs) and ask Medusa’s core team as well as the community any questions.
