HellionChat/CONTRIBUTING.md

Contributing to HellionChat

Thanks for taking a look. HellionChat is a one-person side project developed under Hellion Forge. It started as a fork of Chat 2 and has since become a standalone plugin under its own namespace, IPC channels and source tree (standalone-cut completed in v1.0.0). Forking HellionChat itself is explicitly permitted under the EUPL-1.2.

This document explains what I am looking for, what I am not, and how to make a contribution land smoothly.

Before You Open Anything

• Read the README so you understand the scope: a privacy-focused, EUPL-1.2-licensed Dalamud plugin that intentionally removes the upstream webinterface and ships privacy-first defaults.
• Read docs/UPSTREAM_SYNC.md. Cherry-picks from upstream Chat 2 are selective and deliberate; not everything that lands there belongs here.
• Read SECURITY.md. Anything security-sensitive goes through a private advisory, never a public issue or PR.
• Read the Code of Conduct.

What I Will Accept

• Bug fixes for behaviour documented in the README, the in-plugin settings or the changelog.
• Translation contributions for Hellion-specific strings via direct pull requests against HellionChat/Resources/HellionStrings.*.resx. Translations for upstream Chat 2 strings (Language.*.resx) are not handled here; those go to the upstream Chat 2 project.
• Documentation improvements (README, comments, this file).
• Performance fixes with a measurable before/after.
• New features that fit the privacy-first scope and do not duplicate what an existing Dalamud plugin already does well.

What I Will Probably Decline

• Re-introducing the webinterface or any remote-access feature. It was removed in v0.2.0 on purpose. See the README section "Was gegenüber Chat 2 fehlt".
• Features that bypass the privacy filter or weaken the default retention behaviour without an explicit, documented opt-in.
• Sweeping refactors that touch large parts of the codebase. They make selective upstream cherry-picks much harder and the maintenance cost outweighs the benefit for a one-person project.
• AI-generated code dropped in without disclosure or human review. See docs/AI_DISCLOSURE.md for how I handle AI assistance on my side; I expect comparable transparency from contributors.

If you are unsure whether an idea fits, open a feature-request issue first and ask before writing code. I would rather say "no" to a proposal than to a finished pull request.

Workflow

1. Open an issue (bug or feature request) using the templates under .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/. Skip this for trivial typos.
2. Fork the repository and branch off main. Branch naming is informal; something like fix/auto-tell-history-empty or feat/theme-export is fine.
3. Match the existing code style. The repository ships an .editorconfig that VS Code and Rider pick up automatically.
4. Keep commits focused. Several small commits with clear messages are easier to review than one large one. Squash-on-merge happens at the PR level if needed.
5. If your change touches user-visible behaviour, update the README and/or the changelog block in HellionChat/HellionChat.yaml and repo.json. I bump the version number myself at release time.
6. Open the pull request against main. The PR template will ask you to summarise the change, the testing you did and any compatibility notes.

Build and Test

The project targets net10.0-windows against Dalamud SDK 15. To build locally you need:

• .NET 10 SDK
• A working Dalamud dev environment with DALAMUD_HOME set (XIVLauncher installed and launched once is the simplest path)
• VS Code with the C# Dev Kit, Rider, or Visual Studio

dotnet restore
dotnet build HellionChat.sln -c Release

There are currently no tests in HellionChat.sln. If you add a test project, point it at the relevant subsystems (privacy filter, configuration migration, message store) and mention it in the PR.

For a smoke test in-game: build, copy the output into your Dalamud devPlugins/HellionChat/ directory and load it via /xlplugins.

Continuous Integration

Every push and every pull request runs:

Workflow	What it checks
build.yml	dotnet build and dotnet test
codeql.yml	CodeQL security analysis

A pull request will not be merged while either of these is failing. CodeQL findings on changed code need to be addressed; pre-existing findings on untouched code are tracked separately.

Translations

Hellion-specific strings live in HellionChat/Resources/HellionStrings.resx (English source) and HellionStrings.<lang>.resx (per-language). These are accepted as direct pull requests.

The upstream Chat 2 strings in HellionChat/Resources/Language.*.resx are not translated here. They are owned by the upstream project and synced in via cherry-pick. Please contribute those to Infiziert90/ChatTwo instead.

Licensing

By submitting a pull request you confirm that:

• Your contribution is your own work, or you have the right to contribute it under the project licence.
• You agree that your contribution will be released under the EUPL-1.2, the same licence as the rest of the project.

There is no separate CLA. Forking HellionChat is explicitly permitted under the EUPL-1.2, as with any EUPL-licensed project.

Response Times

Channel	Address
GitHub Issues	Preferred for bugs and feature requests
Discord DM	@j.j_kazama
Email	kontakt@hellion-media.de

I respond on weekdays during European business hours and take weekends and FFXIV patch days off. A pull request that sits for a few days has not been ignored. Pinging once after a week is fine; please do not ping daily.