We are happy to accept contributions from everyone. Feel free to browse our [bounty list](https://www.finegrain.ai/bounties) to find a task you would like to work on.
This document describes the process for contributing to Refiners.
## Licensing
Refiners is a library that is freely available to use and modify under the MIT License. It's essential to exercise caution when using external code, as any code that can affect the licensing of Refiners, including proprietary code, should not be copied and pasted. It's worth noting that some open-source licenses can also be problematic. For instance, we'd need to redistribute an Apache 2.0 license if you're using code from an Apache 2.0 codebase.
## Design principles
We do not enforce strict rules on the design of the code, but we do have a few guidelines that we try to follow:
- No dead code. We keep the codebase clean and remove unnecessary code/functionality.
- No unnecessary dependencies. We keep the number of dependencies to a minimum and only add new ones if necessary.
- Separate concerns. We separate the code into different modules and avoid having too many dependencies between modules. In particular, we try not to revisit existing code/models when adding new functionality. Instead, we add new functionality in a separate module with the `Adapter` pattern.
- Declarative style. We make the code as declarative, self-documenting, and easily read as possible. By reading the model's `repr`, you should understand how it works. We use explicit names for the different components of the models or the variables in the code.
## Setting up your environment
We use [Rye](https://rye-up.com/guide/installation/) to manage our development environment. Please follow the instructions on the Rye website to install it.