Contributing to Sky

Build Status

Things you will need

  • git (used for source version control).
  • An IDE. We recommend Atom.
  • An ssh client (used to authenticate with GitHub).
  • Chromium‘s depot_tools (make sure it’s in your path). We use the ‘gclient’ tool from depot_tools.
  • Python (used by many of our tools, including ‘gclient’).
  • curl (used by gclient sync).

You do not need Dart installed, as a Dart tool chain is automatically downloaded as part of the “getting the code” step. Similarly for the Android SDK, it's downloaded by the build step below where you run download_android_tools.py.

Getting the code

To get the code:

  • Fork https://github.com/flutter/engine into your own GitHub account. If you already have a fork, and are now installing a development environment on a new machine, make sure you‘ve updated your fork so that you don’t use stale configuration options from long ago.
  • If you haven‘t configured your machine with an SSH key that’s known to github then follow the directions here: https://help.github.com/articles/generating-ssh-keys/.
  • Create an empty directory for your copy of the repository. Call it what you like. For the sake of the instructions that follow, we'll call it flutter.
  • Create a .gclient file in the flutter directory with the following contents, replacing <your_name_here> with your GitHub account name:
solutions = [
  {
    "managed": False,
    "name": "src",
    "url": "git@github.com:<your_name_here>/engine.git",
    "custom_deps": {},
    "deps_file": "DEPS",
    "safesync_url": "",
  },
]
target_os = ["android"]
  • cd flutter (Change to the directory in which you put the .gclient file)
  • gclient sync This will fetch all the source code that Flutter depends on. Avoid interrupting this script, it can leave your repository in an inconsistent state that is tedious to clean up.
  • cd src (Change to the directory that gclient sync created in your flutter directory)
  • git remote add upstream git@github.com:flutter/engine.git (So that you fetch from the master repository, not your clone, when running git fetch et al)
  • Add .../flutter/src/third_party/dart-sdk/dart-sdk/bin/ to your path so that you can run the pub tool more easily.

Building the code

Currently we support building on Linux only, for an Android target and for a headless Linux target. Building on MacOS for Android, iOS, and a head-less MacOS target is coming soon.

Android (cross-compiling from Mac or Linux)

The first time

From the ‘src’ directory that the gclient sync step created earlier:

  • Run ./tools/android/download_android_tools.py
  • On Linux: Run sudo ./build/install-build-deps-android.sh
  • On Mac: Install Oracle's Java JDK, version 1.7 or later.
  • On Mac: Install “ant”: brew install ant.

Building

Run the following steps, again from the aforementioned ‘src’ directory:

  • ./sky/tools/gn --android
  • ninja -C out/android_Debug
  • ./sky/tools/shelldb start out/android_Debug/ examples/hello_world/lib/main.dart

Desktop (Mac and Linux)

  • (Linux, only the first time) sudo ./build/install-build-deps.sh
  • ./sky/tools/gn
  • ninja -C out/Debug

Running the tests

  • ./sky/tools/run_tests --debug runs the tests on the host machine using out/Debug.
  • If you want to run the run a test directly:
    • (Linux) ./out/Debug/sky_shell --package-root=sky/unit/packages sky/unit/test/harness/trivial_test.dart
    • (Mac) ./sky/tools/run_tests --debug test/harness/trivial_test.dart

Note: The tests are headless, you won't see any UI. You can use print to generate console output or you can interact with the DartVM via observatory at http://localhost:8181/.

Adding a test

To add a test, simply create a file whose name ends with _test.dart in the sky/unit/test directory. The test should have a main function and use package:test.

Running the examples

  • Before running the examples, you'll need to set up your path to include the Dart SDK directory, like so (starting in the src directory of your code tree):
  • $ export PATH=$PATH:`pwd`/third_party/dart-sdk/dart-sdk/bin
  • You can find example code in subdirectories of the examples directory, for example examples/stocks.
  • Once you have a local build, run pub get from the example folder of your choice to make sure that you have all of the Dart dependencies.
  • Then, to run the current example locally, you can run:
  • $ ./packages/sky/sky_tool --local-build start
  • The --local-build parameter attempts to determine the location of your local build directory. You can override it by specifying the --sky-src-path and --android-debug-build-path parameters. These parameters should not normally be needed, though. Run $ ./packages/sky/sky_tool -h to see details about the parameters.
  • You can also specify a particular Dart file to run if you want to run an example that doesn't have a lib/main.dart file. For example, to run the tabs.dart example in the examples/widgets directory on a connected Android device, from that directory you would run:
  • $ ./packages/sky/sky_tool --local-build start tabs.dart
  • When running code from the examples directory, any changes you make to the example code, as well as any changes to Dart code in the sky directory and subdirectories will automatically be picked when you relaunch the app. You can do the same for your own code by mimicking the pubspec.yaml files in the examples subdirectories.
  • You can also use $ ./packages/sky/sky_tool --local-build listen in the various example directories (or your own Sky apps) to listen for changes you are making to the app and automatically update the running SkyShell instance on your Android device. iOS device and simulator support are coming soon.
  • You can replace --local-build in any of the above commands with --release if you have made release builds and want to test with them. E.g., $ ./packages/sky/sky_tool --release start will attempt to use your release build of the Android SkyShell.apk.
  • If you just need to install SkyShell on a device, you can run $ ./packages/sky/sky_tool --local-build install.

Contributing code

The Sky engine repository gladly accepts contributions via GitHub pull requests.

To start working on a patch:

  • git fetch upstream
  • git checkout upstream/master -b name_of_your_branch
  • Hack away
  • git commit -a -m "<your brief but informative commit message>"
  • git push origin name_of_your_branch

To send us a pull request:

  • git pull-request (if you are using Hub) or go to https://github.com/<your_name_here>/sky_engine and click the “Compare & pull request” button

Please peruse our style guides and design principles before working on anything non-trivial. These guidelines are intended to keep the code consistent and avoid common pitfalls.

Please make sure all your checkins have detailed commit messages explaining the patch. If you made multiple commits for a single pull request, either make sure each one has a detailed message explaining that specific commit, or squash your commits into one single checkin with a detailed message before sending the pull request.

You must complete the Contributor License Agreement. You can do this online, and it only takes a minute. If you‘ve never submitted code before, you must add your (or your organization’s) name and contact info to the AUTHORS file.