Skip to contents

Contributing to pcatR

Source: CONTRIBUTING.md

Thank you for contributing. Changes should be focused, reproducible, and methodologically explicit.

Development setup

install.packages(c(
  "devtools", "roxygen2", "testthat", "knitr", "rmarkdown", "pkgdown"
))
devtools::load_all()
devtools::test()
devtools::check()

Pull-request requirements

  1. Open or reference an issue describing the problem and intended behavior.
  2. Add or update tests for every behavioral change.
  3. Update roxygen documentation, README/guide text, and NEWS.md when relevant.
  4. Run devtools::document(), devtools::test(), and devtools::check().
  5. Do not commit real respondent data, direct identifiers, credentials, or generated local libraries.
  6. Preserve CC BY attribution for source-derived instrument content.

Methodological changes

Changes to item wording, response coding, CFIR mappings, summary denominators, consensus rules, longitudinal pairing, or strategy mappings require primary source verification. Do not introduce an overall pCAT score without published validation and a clear versioned specification.

Style

Use explicit namespace calls for external packages, base R data frames for public return objects, stable snake_case column names, and actionable error messages. Public functions require examples, tests, and documented return values.