How to contribute

The Spring Framework is open source and welcomes external contributions. Most production code in the repository is written by a small core team, but the project routinely accepts community fixes, polish, and small features.

Contribution checklist

For any non-trivial change, expect the workflow to look roughly like:

1. Discuss first when in doubt — for non-trivial features, search issues and Stack Overflow for prior conversations. The team prefers one issue per topic.
2. Branch from main — pull requests target main. Backports to maintenance branches (6.2.x, 7.0.x) are decided by the team after merge.
3. Sign off your commits — every commit must include a Signed-off-by: trailer (DCO). See CONTRIBUTING.md for details.
4. Keep commits focused — squash unrelated edits; split unrelated changes into separate PRs.
5. Write tests — new code without test coverage is rarely accepted.
6. Follow the code style — see patterns and conventions.
7. Run ./gradlew check — locally before pushing. CI runs across multiple JDKs.
8. Reference issues in commit messages — use Closes gh-12345 for the subject's trailer line.

What's in this section

• Development workflow — branch, code, test, PR
• Testing — how the test stack is wired and where to add coverage
• Debugging — common pain points and how to investigate
• Patterns and conventions — coding style, error handling, nullability
• Tooling — Gradle plugins, build scans, code quality gates

Where to find help

• Stack Overflow spring tag — first stop for usage questions
• Spring Gitter / Slack — community chat
• Spring Blog — release announcements and deep-dives
• Issue tracker — bug reports and feature requests