CONTRIBUTING.md

# Contributing to Apache Solr Orbit

Apache Solr Orbit is a community project built by people like **you**.
We're glad you're interested in contributing.

## First Things First

1. **When in doubt, open an issue** — before making changes, open an issue to
   describe the problem or feature. This avoids duplicated effort and lets the
   community agree on the right direction before you invest time in a PR.

2. **Only submit your own work** — ensure any code or documentation you submit
   is yours or you have the right to submit it under the Apache License 2.0.

## Ways to Contribute

### Bug Reports

Please confirm you are on the latest code, then open an issue with:
- Steps to reproduce
- Expected vs. actual behaviour
- Solr version and benchmark configuration

### Feature Requests

Open an issue describing the feature, the motivation, and a rough design sketch.

### Contributing Code

1. Open an issue first (see above).
2. Read the [Developer Guide](./DEVELOPER_GUIDE.md).
3. Fork the repository, create a branch, make your changes, and open a PR.
4. Open the PR.

## License

Apache Solr Orbit is released under the [Apache License 2.0](./LICENSE).
By submitting a contribution, you agree to license it under the same license.

## Review Process

We aim to review contributions promptly. To smooth the process:

- Reference the related issue in your PR description.
- Keep PRs focused; a narrow PR is easier to review than a large one.
- Respond to review comments in a timely manner.
- If you stop working on a PR, let us know so we can close or reassign it.