# Contributing benilla is a faithful 1.12.1 client. It is the foundation people build on, not the place to get creative: a change is accepted when it makes benilla more like 1.12.1 or fixes a bug, with evidence from the reference, in one small piece, with the gates green. Everything else lives on top of benilla, in a crate of its own or a fork, and both are welcome. ## Where to start The [issues](https://github.com/samwhosung/benilla/issues) the maintainers file are checked against 1.12.1 first: each says what 1.12.1 does, what benilla does instead, and where in the code, and any of them is a place to start. One labelled `in progress` is taken: someone is working on it or a pull request is open for it, so pick another. Once you start one, open a draft pull request that says `Fixes #N` as soon as you have a first commit, so the issue shows it is taken. ## What gets in - A fix for a bug, with how to see it before and after. - A step closer to 1.12.1: a missing packet, verb, window, effect or behaviour, done the way the real client does it. - A correction where benilla and the reference disagree, with the reference fact stated. - Whatever the stock 1.12.1 client loads from a patch, benilla loads: models, textures or data rows that 1.12.1 shows and benilla does not are a bug. ## What does not - Features 1.12.1 does not have, including what 1.12 client mods add (a new key binding, a spell queue, new Lua functions, graphics past 1.12's), and behaviour changed because it seems better. They live on top of benilla ("Building on top"), so that what benilla does is what 1.12.1 does, for everyone who builds on it. A deviation from the reference is the maintainer's call and is recorded where it lives; a pull request is not the place to propose one. - Anything from a WoW install: art, models, sounds, maps, data, and interface code (FrameXML and GlueXML), which runs off the player's own install (`docs/METHOD.md`). - Big or mixed changes. One change per pull request, small enough to read in one sitting. ## Building on top A feature 1.12.1 does not have lives in a crate of its own that adds its Bevy plugins through `benilla_app::run_with`, as `crates/benilla-app/examples/extended_launcher.rs` shows, or in a fork. A client started through `run_with` says `extended` in its build line, so its reports read apart from stock benilla's. The crate keeps its own settings, never rows in benilla's CVar table, which every addon reads, and its files go under `benilla_app::config_dir()`, its own `benilla-config/`: an addon it ships is written into that folder's `AddOns/` and loads as any addon does. Past `run_with` and that folder, benilla opens a piece of itself to such a crate only when its own 1.12.1 work creates that piece, never for the crate alone, and promises no stable API: a crate pins the benilla revision it builds on. What a crate cannot reach stays a fork's. ## How a change is judged 1. `scripts/gates.sh` is green: fmt, clippy with warnings denied, the workspace tests (once with the client data, once without, so a test that reads the install has to declare it), the doc-link and render-pass lints, the player build with its own tests, and the engine boot checks. A pull request from a fork runs the ones that need neither the install nor a display in CI, on Linux; the rest run on the maintainer's machine before it lands. 2. The reference fact is stated: what 1.12.1 does, and where that is known from (the client's behaviour you observed, a DBC field, a FrameXML line, a packet capture). The names and shapes under `reference/` are the surface benilla tracks. 3. A comment where it matters, one line, saying what the code does and the 1.12 fact behind it. No history. 4. The commit message says what changed, for a player or a developer, in one line. ## After you open it A maintainer reads it, checks it against the reference, runs it and finishes it here: a rebase onto main, a fix, a test or a comment, added as commits on top of yours on your branch, so leave "Allow edits by maintainers" ticked. It lands as one squash-merged commit with you as its author. When what would land is mostly ours, we land our own version with you as a co-author and close yours with a note, and when main already has the fix, we close yours and say where. One that is out of scope is closed with the reason. ## Setting up - **The toolchain.** Stable Rust (`rust-toolchain.toml` adds clippy and rustfmt) and a C compiler, because the client's Lua is vendored and built from source. On macOS the Xcode command line tools, which also supply libclang for the audio bindings; on Linux the ALSA and udev development packages and pkg-config. `python3` runs two of the gates. - **A 1.12.1 install of your own.** `WOW_DATA=`, or a `WoW` link at the repo root, which only a dev build sees: the player build looks for `Data/` or `WoW/Data/` beside the binary. benilla reads the install and never writes into it. `WOW_DATA=` (set, empty) means "no install", which is how the no-install boot is tested on a machine that has one. - **Without the install, green is hollow.** Well over a thousand tests read the install and skip when it is absent, and a few dozen more read a corpus of vanilla addons (`BENILLA_ADDON_CORPUS=`, or a `wow-addons-vanilla` link at the root), third-party content that is not in this repo. `scripts/gates.sh` and `scripts/check.sh` print how many tests skipped and why. Where the data is, `BENILLA_REQUIRE_DATA=1` turns a skip into a failure, and the gates set it themselves when the install and the corpus both resolve. - **A server to test against.** Any 1.12.1 server; `WOW_HOST` names it (default `localhost:3724`). A scripted run has no default account: `WOW_USER`, `WOW_PASS` and `WOW_CHAR` name a test account on your server whose login kicks nobody, all three, either in the environment or in a `.probe-identity` file at the repo root (one per line, never committed), and `scripts/smoke.sh` (the live login gate) refuses without them. `WOW_CHAR` must already be on the account, since the client creates a character only when asked: `WOW_PROBE_CHARCREATE= WOW_PROBE_CHARCREATE_KEEP=1`, run without `WOW_CHAR`, makes it. The probes drive the body with GM commands, so give that account the top GM level. - **Running it unattended.** The rules are `docs/METHOD.md`, "The local server"; these are the switches. - `WOW_UNATTENDED=1` reconnects instead of waiting at a dialog, and exits non-zero on a login it cannot pass. `WOW_NOSOUND=1` runs silent. A capture (`WOW_CAPTURE`) is both, and a rig (`WOW_RIG`) is unattended. `WOW_ALLOW_ACCOUNT=1` overrides the account guard. - On vmangos, `WOW_RIG="tauren druid 60 gear:heal-preraid-bis spec:heal-preraid-bis at:ThunderBluff"` finds or creates that character on the account and applies the server's premade sets (`WOW_RIG="gear:?"` lists them). `WOW_PROBE_CHAT=""` sends one GM command and logs the reply as `net: server says`. An account named `probe` and digits is shielded: every world entry sends `.cheat god on`, `.die` clears it for a death test, and `WOW_GOD=off` leaves it off. - A trace is `WOW_MOVE_TRACE=`, filtered with `WOW_MOVE_TRACE_TAGS` (`"move,snd,in"`) and ended by `WOW_PROBE_EXIT_AT=`; grep it for the `rly` and `snd` lines. - A capture runs through `scripts/visual.sh`, whose recipe is the header of `crates/benilla-app/src/capture/mod.rs`. Pixel questions go through `benilla-visual crop`, `series` and `hotspot`. - **The loop.** `cargo play` builds and runs the play profile. `scripts/check.sh` verifies a round of work; `scripts/gates.sh` is the full chain, and it opens a window for the engine boot checks, so it needs a display. `WOW_STOCK_UI=1` boots a dev build on the stock interface alone, without benilla's layer. Work on a branch. ## Reporting a bug Open an issue: what you did, what you saw and what 1.12.1 does instead, with the `benilla build` line from the start of the terminal output, your platform and the server you ran on. Questions and ideas are welcome there or on the Discord linked from the README. Working with an AI agent is expected. The agent reads `AGENTS.md`, and the same rules bind it.