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Contributing

Contributions are welcome — bug reports, feature requests, documentation improvements, and pull requests are all appreciated.

Getting started

  1. Fork the repository on GitHub
  2. Clone your fork: git clone https://github.com/<you>/hornet
  3. Create a feature branch: git checkout -b feat/my-feature
  4. Make your changes
  5. Run the quality gate: make quality
  6. Push and open a pull request

Adding support for a new named.conf statement

Follow this checklist in order:

  • Add AST types to src/ast/named_conf.rs
  • Add a new arm to the Statement enum
  • Add a parser in src/parser/named_conf.rs
  • Add a writer arm in src/writer/named_conf.rs
  • Add validation rules in src/validator/mod.rs (if applicable)
  • Add integration tests in tests/named_conf.rs
  • Update the named.conf Constructs reference page

Adding support for a new zone file record type

Follow this checklist in order:

  • Add an RData variant to src/ast/zone_file.rs
  • Add a parser case in src/parser/zone_file.rs
  • Add a writer case in src/writer/zone_file.rs
  • Add validation rules if applicable
  • Add integration tests in tests/zone_file.rs
  • Update the Zone Record Types reference page

Code style

  • Rust edition 2021, MSRV 1.74
  • All public items must have /// doc comments
  • Use thiserror for error types
  • Use tracing for diagnostics (not println! or eprintln! in library code)
  • Prefer early returns over deeply nested if/else
  • No unwrap() in production code — use ? or explicit error handling
  • No magic numbers — define named constants
  • All new code must pass cargo clippy --all-targets --all-features -- -D warnings

Commit messages

Follow Conventional Commits:

feat(parser): add support for the 'server' statement
fix(validator): report duplicate zone names as Error not Warning
docs(cli): document --allow-warnings flag for check command
test(zone_file): add round-trip tests for TLSA records

Pull request guidelines

  • One concern per PR — keep PRs focused on a single feature or fix
  • Tests required — new parsers and writers must have integration tests
  • Documentation required — update the relevant reference pages
  • Green CI required — make quality must pass

Reporting bugs

Open an issue at https://github.com/firestoned/hornet/issues with:

  • The hornet version (hornet --version)
  • The BIND9 config or zone file fragment that causes the issue (minimised if possible)
  • What you expected to happen
  • What actually happened

License

By contributing to Hornet you agree that your contributions will be licensed under the MIT License, consistent with the rest of the project.