microsoft / microsoft/winget-cli

Add coding conventions guidance for contributors

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#6,395 1 comment 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Issue-Feature
Dominant language
C++
Stars
26.4k
Forks
1.8k
Avg merge
1d 11h
Merged PRs (30d)
15

Description

Part of #6393.

Problem

CONTRIBUTING.md does not link contributors to any authoritative coding conventions. doc/Developing.md covers building, debugging, and running tests, but not how we expect code to be written (naming, error handling, resource strings, etc.). New contributors have to infer conventions from surrounding code.

Proposed change

Add concise coding conventions guidance - either a new doc/Coding.md referenced from CONTRIBUTING.md, or a dedicated section - covering at minimum:

  • Naming and formatting expectations (and a pointer to .editorconfig).
  • Error handling patterns used in the codebase (e.g., hr / AICLI_* result handling).
  • The resource-string <comment> requirement already documented in doc/Developing.md (Localization).
  • A pointer to .github/copilot-instructions.md for build/architecture/convention context.

Notes for engineers

The team should define/ratify the canonical conventions to document here. This issue is about creating the home for them and linking it from CONTRIBUTING.md; the specific rules need engineering input.

Acceptance criteria

  • A coding conventions doc (or section) exists and is linked from CONTRIBUTING.md.

(Created with GitHub Copilot assistance.)

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Read CONTRIBUTING.md and doc/Developing.md first, then inspect .editorconfig and .github/copilot-instructions.md for the conventions and links already available. Confirm the canonical guidance with engineering input, document the requested naming, formatting, error-handling, and resource-string points, and link the resulting doc or section from CONTRIBUTING.md.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
cpp
Domain
cli, documentation
Issue type
Documentation
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
48/100

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