Vencord/CONTRIBUTING.md

# Contributing to Vencord

Vencord is a community project and welcomes any kind of contribution from anyone!

We have development documentation for new contributors, which can be found at <https://docs.vencord.dev>.

All contributions should be made in accordance with our [Code of Conduct](./CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md).

## How to contribute

Contributions can be sent via pull requests. If you're new to Git, check [this guide](https://opensource.com/article/19/7/create-pull-request-github).

Pull requests can be made either to the `main` or the `dev` branch. However, unless you're an advanced user, I recommend sticking to `main`. This is because the dev branch might contain unstable changes and be force pushed frequently, which could cause conflicts in your pull request.

## Write a plugin

Writing a plugin is the primary way to contribute.

Before starting your plugin:
- Check existing pull requests to see if someone is already working on a similar plugin
- Check our [plugin requests tracker](https://github.com/Vencord/plugin-requests/issues) to see if there is an existing request, or if the same idea has been rejected
- If there isn't an existing request, [open one](https://github.com/Vencord/plugin-requests/issues/new?assignees=&labels=&projects=&template=request.yml) yourself
  and include that you'd like to work on this yourself. Then wait for feedback to see if the idea even has any chance of being accepted. Or maybe others have some ideas to improve it!
- Familarise yourself with our plugin rules below to ensure your plugin is not banned

### Plugin Rules

- No simple slash command plugins like `/cat`. Instead, make a [user installable Discord bot](https://discord.com/developers/docs/change-log#userinstallable-apps-preview)
- No simple text replace plugins like Let me Google that for you. The TextReplace plugin can do this
- No raw DOM manipulation. Use proper patches and React
- No FakeDeafen or FakeMute
- No StereoMic
- No plugins that simply hide or redesign ui elements. This can be done with CSS
- No selfbots or API spam (animated status, message pruner, auto reply, nitro snipers, etc)
- No untrusted third party APIs. Popular services like Google or GitHub are fine, but absolutely no self hosted ones
- No plugins that require the user to enter their own API key
- Do not introduce new dependencies unless absolutely necessary and warranted

## Improve Vencord itself

If you have any ideas on how to improve Vencord itself, or want to propose a new plugin API, feel free to open a feature request so we can discuss.

Or if you notice any bugs or typos, feel free to fix them!

## Contribute to our Documentation

The source code of our documentation is available at <https://github.com/Vencord/Docs>

If you see anything outdated, incorrect or lacking, please fix it!
If you think a new page should be added, feel free to suggest it via an issue and we can discuss.

## Help out users in our Discord community

We have an open support channel in our [Discord community](https://vencord.dev/discord).
Helping out users there is always appreciated! The more, the merrier.