Contributing to Swarm

Thank you for your interest in contributing to Swarm! This document explains how to contribute and the terms that apply.

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Contributor Agreement

By submitting a pull request or other contribution to this project, you agree to the following:

1. License Grant. You grant the project (and its stakeholders as defined in GOVERNANCE.md) a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, irrevocable license to use, reproduce, modify, distribute, and sublicense your contribution under the terms of the Swarm Open Source License.

2. IP Disposition Rights. You acknowledge that your contribution may be included in any IP Disposition as defined in the LICENSE, and that proceeds from such disposition will be distributed per the ownership structure in GOVERNANCE.md, including the Community Contributors allocation.

3. Original Work. You represent that your contribution is your original work (or that you have the right to submit it) and that it does not infringe any third-party intellectual property rights.

4. Contributor Status. Upon having a contribution merged, you become a Community Contributor entitled to a pro-rata share of the 33% Community allocation, weighted by your contributions as described in GOVERNANCE.md.

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How to Contribute

Getting Started

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch from main
3. Make your changes
4. Write or update tests as needed
5. Submit a pull request

Pull Request Guidelines

• Keep PRs focused — one feature or fix per PR
• Include a clear description of what changed and why
• Reference any related issues
• Ensure all tests pass before submitting

Code Style

• Follow existing patterns in the codebase
• Use meaningful variable and function names
• Add comments only where the logic is non-obvious

Issues and Discussions

• Use GitHub Issues for bug reports and feature requests
• Use Discussions for questions and design proposals
• Check existing issues before creating duplicates

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Security Vulnerabilities

If you discover a security vulnerability, do NOT open a public issue. Instead, follow the responsible disclosure process in SECURITY.md.

Security researchers may be eligible for bounties from the 1% Security Bounty Reserve.

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Recognition

All contributors with merged PRs are listed in CONTRIBUTORS.md and are part of the Community Contributors pool for revenue/proceeds distribution.

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By contributing, you agree to the terms above and to the Swarm Open Source License v1.0.