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Contributing to GoatDB

Your contributions power the next generation of collaborative applications. Every feature you add, bug you fix, and optimization you make helps developers worldwide build better real-time, offline-capable apps.

Ready to Start?

Check out our Good First Issues to find your first contribution opportunity.

What You're Building​

Simplicity for Complex Problems: Your code eliminates the complexity of custom sync servers, conflict resolution, and state management that traditionally plague collaborative apps.

Cutting-Edge Distributed Systems: Work on Bloom filter synchronization, ephemeral CRDTs, and cryptographically signed commit graphs—techniques pushing the boundaries of database design.

Cross-Runtime Innovation: Build features that work identically across Deno, Node.js, and browsers with a single TypeScript codebase.

Getting Started​

Prerequisites: Deno v2.4+ (install here) and Node.js v24+ for cross-runtime testing.

AI-Enhanced Development: GoatDB is optimized for AI-assisted development with Claude Code, Cursor, and ChunkHound.

Setup:

git clone https://github.com/goatplatform/goatdb.git
cd goatdb

# Verify cross-platform functionality
deno task test   # Tests across Deno, Node.js, and browsers
deno task bench  # Performance validation
deno task build  # Compile optimizations

# Documentation site
deno task docs:serve  # Docusaurus docs server

Testing & Performance​

Cross-Platform Testing: Ensure your changes work identically across all runtimes:

# All platforms
deno task test

# Specific environments
deno task test --runtime=browser
deno task test --runtime=node
deno task test --suite=DB --test="conflict resolution"

# Debug mode
deno task test --debug --deno-inspect-brk

Performance Validation: Maintain GoatDB's real-time performance characteristics:

# Full benchmark suite
deno task bench

# Specific scenarios
deno task bench --benchmark="GoatDB Sync Protocol"
deno task bench --runtime=browser --headless

Features: Single-process debugging, real-world metrics (P95, P99), source map support across all platforms.

Quality Gate

Run deno task test && deno task bench before submitting to ensure no regressions.

Code Standards​

  • Formatting — deno fmt (2-space indent, single quotes, 80-char line width)
  • Naming — camelCase for variables/functions, PascalCase for classes, _prefix for private fields
  • Imports — explicit .ts extensions required
  • Cross-platform — code must work identically across Deno, Node.js, and browsers

Pull Request Checklist​

  • Descriptive title explaining your change's impact
  • All tests pass: deno task test across all platforms
  • Performance maintained: deno task bench shows no regressions
  • Documentation updated for API changes

Issues & Ideas​

Bug Reports: Include GoatDB version, target runtime, reproduction steps, and error messages.

Feature Requests: Check existing issues first, then use our feature request template.

Security: Email security issues privately to ofri [at] goatdb [dot] com.

Community​

License​

All contributions are licensed under the MIT license.

Ready to contribute? Your first pull request is just a fork away.