Contributing to SAGE26

This guide is for contributors to the SAGE26 codebase.

Getting started

git clone https://github.com/MBradley1985/SAGE26.git
cd SAGE26
make                # build ./sage and libsage.so
cd tests && make test   # build and run the test suites

See the developer style guides under https://github.com/MBradley1985/SAGE26/tree/main/docs/developer for architecture notes and code conventions.

Branch model

main — stable, paper-freeze state.
dev — integration branch; all work goes here first.
Feature branches off dev; merge back via PR.

Style guides

Language	Guide
C	STYLE_C.md
Commits	STYLE_COMMITS.md
Docs	STYLE_DOCS.md
Tests	STYLE_TESTS.md

Key rules for C:

Every file has a /* filename.c -- one-line summary. */ header.
File-private functions are static; public functions are declared in the matching .h.
Function docstrings use /* ... */ block comments immediately before each definition.
ASCII-only in source files (no Greek letters, superscripts, or em-dashes).

Tests

Always run tests from inside the tests/ directory; the root make tests target references a launcher script that does not exist in this tree.

cd tests && make test               # all suites
cd tests && make test_conservation  # conservation only (fastest)
cd tests && make quick              # single fastest check
bash tests/run_integration_tests.sh # full integration test (slower)

New physics changes must keep the regression baseline bit-identical:

bash tests/regression_baseline.sh

Submitting changes

Run make tests and verify all suites pass.
Run the regression baseline and confirm 5380 datasets are bit-identical.
Open a pull request from your branch into dev.
Tag @MBradley1985 for review.