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CONTRIBUTING.md

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+# Contributing to Merlin
+
+Merlin is a community oriented open-source project and we encourage and value
+any kind of contribution. Thanks for taking the time to contribute 🐫 !
+
+## Code of Conduct
+
+Merlin adheres to the OCaml Code of Conduct as stated in the [Code of Conduct
+document](CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md). By participating, you are expected to uphold this
+code. Please report unacceptable behavior either to local contacts (listed in
+[here](CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md)) or to someone listed in the upstream [OCaml Code of
+Conduct](CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md).
+
+## Documentation
+
+Merlin (partial and fragmented) documentation can be found in the following
+places:
+- Installation instructions and editor setup can be found in the
+ [README.md](README.md) and the [Github Pages](https://ocaml.github.io/merlin/)
+- Various topics related to editor support and configuration can be found in the
+ [wiki](https://github.com/ocaml/merlin/wiki).
+- The Merlin protocol is described in [this
+ document](https://github.com/ocaml/merlin/blob/master/doc/dev/PROTOCOL.md).
+
+Contributions to the documentation are welcome!
+
+## Question, bug reports and feature requests
+
+We rely on [Github's issue tracker](https://github.com/ocaml/merlin/issues) for
+support questions, feature requests and bug reports.
+
+When reporting an issue, please include a precise reproduction in the bug report
+when that's possible, as it is a very useful tool to investigate. You should
+also check that you are using the latest version of Merlin and that a similar
+issue has not already been submitted.
+
+## Code contributions
+
+### Styleguides
+
+As of today, Merlin's codebase does not use a code formatter. When contributing
+code to an existing module, one should adopt the style of the surrounding code.
+Please keep lines under 80 characters.
+
+We plan to move the codebase to ocamlformat in a near future.
+
+Changes unrelated to the issue addressed by a PR should be made in a separate
+PR. Additionally, formatting changes in parts of the code not concerned by a
+specific PR should be proposed in another PR.
+
+Ideally, any opened issue should be accompanied by a test with a reproduction.
+When working on a fix for an issue, the first commit should contain the test
+showing the issue. Following commits should fix the issue and update the test
+result accordingly.
+
+### Menhir version
+
+Merlin promotes the generated Menhir parser in its sources. This is done to
+avoid depending on Menhir when installing Merlin. However this also means that
+unnecessary diff will appear when the parser gets re-generated by a different
+version of Menhir. To remove this diff please use version `20201216`:
+```bash
+$ opam pin menhir 20201216
+```
+The generated parser file should only be commited if there is an actual change
+in the grammar.
+
+### Repository organization
+
+There is a partial overview over the repo organization with file-granularity at
+[ARCHITECTURE.md](https://github.com/ocaml/merlin/blob/master/doc/dev/ARCHITECTURE.md).
+Here is a more high-level overview.
+
+#### `/src/ocaml`
+Vendored OCaml typer. Also include Merlin's incremental parser and other
+utilites. Changes to these modules should be kept minimal as these patches need
+to be reapplied for each new version of the compiler.
+
+#### `/src/kernel`
+The backbone of merlin. Contains configuration utilities and pipeline
+management. The pipeline describes the compilation workflow: parsing, ppxing and
+typing.
+
+#### `/src/frontend/query_protocol.ml`
+The type description of Merlin's protocol as documented in
+[PROTOCOL.md](https://github.com/ocaml/merlin/blob/master/doc/dev/PROTOCOL.md)
+
+#### `/src/frontend/query_commands.ml`
+This file contains the dispatcher: a large pattern matching that answers
+Merlin's queries. Most of the time answering a query begins with getting the
+Typedtree from the pipeline and calling the correct analysis functions.
+
+#### `/src/analysis`
+Contains most of Merlin logic required to answer the queries.
+
+#### `/src/dot-protocol`
+The configuration protocol that configuration servers such as
+`dot-merlin-reader` or `dune ocaml-merlin` should implement.
+
+#### `/src/dot-merlin-reader`
+The historical configuration server of Merlin. It reads `.merlin` configuration
+files whose syntax is [documented in the
+wiki](https://github.com/ocaml/merlin/wiki/Project-configuration).
+
+#### `/src/frontend/ocamlmerlin`
+The standard Merlin frontend, composed of a long-running server and a client.
+This is the frontend used by the test-suite and standard emacs and vim plugins.
+For an alternative frontend, see
+[ocaml-lsp-server](https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml-lsp/)
+
+#### `/tests/test-dirs`
+Merlin's behavioral test-suite. We rely on Dune's cram test framework.
+
+#### `/emacs`
+The emacs editor mode.
+
+#### `/vim`
+The vim plugin.