Thank you for helping improve Dagu! We welcome contributions from everyone.

You do not need to understand the whole repository before making a useful first change.

First 15 Minutes

1. Fork the repository and clone it locally.
2. Pick a small issue, then comment on it to claim the work. Use the Discord server if you have questions or get stuck for 20 minutes; that is expected.
3. Choose the track closest to your change:

Track	Start with	First check
Docs / examples	A Markdown file or examples/	No build is required; validate a changed DAG with dagu validate if you have the binary available
UI	ui/	Start the backend with make run-server, then run cd ui && pnpm install && pnpm dev
One executor	internal/runtime/builtin/<name>	make test TEST_TARGET=./internal/runtime/builtin/<name>
API / CLI	internal/service/frontend/api/v1 or internal/cmd	make test TEST_TARGET=./internal/service/frontend/api/v1 or the matching package

For a first PR, change only the files needed for the issue. You do not need to learn every package or run the full test suite before opening a focused PR.

How to Contribute

We welcome contributions of all kinds, including:

• Help other users by answering questions and providing support
• Suggest new features or improvements
• Improve documentation and examples, or provide use cases
• Refactor code for better readability and maintainability
• Fix bugs or add missing tests
• Add new features based on issue discussions
• Review and provide feedback on PRs

Development

Prerequisites depend on your track:

• Go 1.27 or newer for Go and backend changes (install Go).
• Node.js 18.18 or newer and pnpm for UI changes.
• Docs-only changes do not require the Go toolchain.

Building frontend assets:

make ui

Building binary:

make bin

Running Tests

Run the smallest relevant check first. For a Go package, pass its path through TEST_TARGET:

make test TEST_TARGET=./path/to/changed/package

For UI changes:

cd ui
pnpm test

Docs-only and example-only changes do not need Go tests. If an example changes a DAG, validate it with the dagu binary when available. CI and maintainers run the full suite; you do not need to run it before opening a focused first PR.

For the full local Go check:

make lint
make test

Running test with coverage:

make test-coverage

Frontend

Starting the backend server on port 8080:

make run-server

Starting the development server:

cd ui
pnpm install
pnpm dev

Open http://localhost:8081 to view the hot-reloading frontend.

Code Standards

• Write unit tests for any new functionality
• Aim for good test coverage on new code
• Test error conditions and edge cases

Pull Requests

Before submitting:

• [ ] The smallest relevant test or validation command passes
• [ ] make lint passes for Go changes when practical
• [ ] New code includes tests when behavior changes
• Documentation updated if applicable
• Commit messages following the Go Commit Message Guidelines

Review Process

• All PRs are reviewed by maintainers.
• Community members are encouraged to review and provide feedback.

Issues

Bug Reports

When reporting bugs, please include:

• Operating system and version
• Steps to reproduce the issue (example DAG yaml is very helpful)
• Expected behavior
• Actual behavior
• Relevant logs or error messages

Feature Requests

When requesting features, please describe:

• Clearly describe the feature and its use case
• Explain why it would be valuable
• Consider backward compatibility
• Provide examples if possible

License

By contributing to Dagu, you agree that your contributions will be licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0.