Below is our guidance for how to report issues, propose new features, and submit contributions via Pull Requests (PRs). Our philosophy is heavily based around understanding the problem and scenarios first, this is why we follow this pattern before work has started.
Please follow this simple rule to help us eliminate any unnecessary wasted effort & frustration, and ensure an efficient and effective use of everyone's time - yours, ours, and other community members':
> 👉 If you have a question, think you've discovered an issue, would like to propose a new feature, etc., then find/file an issue **BEFORE** starting work to fix/implement it.
When requesting new features / enhancements, understanding problem and scenario around it is extremely important. Having additional evidence, data, tweets, blog posts, research, ... anything is extremely helpful. This information provides context to the scenario that may otherwise be lost.
A quick search before filing an issue also could be helpful. It is likely someone else has found the problem you're seeing, and someone may be working on or have already contributed a fix!
Upvote the original issue by clicking its [+😊] button and hitting 👍 (+1) icon or a different one. This way allows us to measure how impactful different issues are compared to others. The issue with comments like "+1", "me too", or similar is they actually make it harder to have a conversation and harder to quickly determine trending important requests.
Please comment on [our "Would you like to contribute to PowerToys?" thread](https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/28769) to let us know you're interested in working on something before you start the work. Not only does this avoid multiple people unexpectedly working on the same thing at the same time but it enables us to make sure everyone is clear on what should be done to implement any new functionality. It's less work for everyone, in the long run, to establish this up front.
Please file localization issues, so our internal localization team can identify and fix them. However we currently don't accept community Pull Requests fixing localization issues. Localization is handled by the internal Microsoft team only.
A key point is for everyone to understand the approach that will be taken. We want to be sure if anyone does work, we will accept it in. Items that are larger in scope we'll want some type of spec to understand what is being planned and have a discussion. Specs help collaborators discuss different approaches to solve a problem, describe how the feature will behave, how the feature will impact the user, what happens if something goes wrong, etc. Driving towards agreement in a spec, before any code is written, often results in simpler code, and less wasted effort in the long run.
Once the team has approved an issue/spec approach to solving, development can proceed. If no developers are immediately available, the spec can be parked ready for a developer to get started. Parked specs' issues will be labeled "Help Wanted". To find a list of development opportunities waiting for developer involvement, visit the Issues and filter on [the Help-Wanted label](https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/labels/Help%20Wanted).
Be a great community member. Just help out a lot and make useful additions, filing bugs/suggestions, help develop fixes and features, code reviews, and always, docs. Lets continue to make the PowerToys repository a great spot to learn and make a great set of utilities.
When the time comes, Microsoft will reach out and help make you a formal team member. Just make sure they can reach out to you :)
