Improve Repository Documentation

[Nils-ChristianIseke]

I wanted to contribute to the repository but found it challenging due to the lack of a CONTRIBUTING.md guide and a detailed README. Adding clear contribution guidelines and a more comprehensive README would make the process more accessible for new contributors and clarify the repository's purpose and scope.

Additionally, I noticed the absence of a CI pipeline for linting checks. Is there a specific reason for not supporting this? Or am i missing something?

I’d be happy to help with these improvements!

[christophebedard]

Great to hear that you want to contribute! You can find general contribution guidelines here: https://docs.ros.org/en/rolling/The-ROS2-Project/Contributing.html. If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask.

We should probably add something in the README, though. It could start with an overview of the repo and its packages.

Additionally, I noticed the absence of a CI pipeline for linting checks. Is there a specific reason for not supporting this? Or am i missing something?

We use Jenkins CI on ci.ros2.org. Maintainers can trigger jobs for PRs.

[Nils-ChristianIseke]

After reading the documentation and some discussions on ros-discourse, i think there are two main reasons to use ament_lint:

1. Colcon support for the tools
2. Enforcing default tooling configurations across ROS2 Packages.

However, for many of the ament_lint tools you can use your own configurations, this clashes with the 2nd reason. Wouldn't it be better if the ament_tools are completely unconfigurable regarding the linting rules?

[christophebedard]

For the "core" ROS 2 packages, we indeed want to have the same configuration, e.g., https://docs.ros.org/en/rolling/The-ROS2-Project/Contributing/Code-Style-Language-Versions.html.

However, ROS is a federated community with a ton of packages. It makes sense for authors of those packages (which may or may not get released or even ever be run on any other computer) to use these linting tools and to let them configure them however they like.

[Nils-ChristianIseke]

Thank you. And sry for asking this noob questions :).
Just to clarify: This isn’t meant to be criticism—it’s a request to help me (and hopefully others) to align with the project’s goals.
Do you think it is reasonable to add a README containing a little bit of information?
I created a PR (#533) which is far from perfect, feedback is very much appreciated.

[christophebedard]

Of course, adding a README is a good contribution! Your questions are definitely valid, don't worry; you're not the first person who's confused about this repository (or any other ROS 2-related repository) not having much/any documentation. This is generally because the "core" of ROS 2 (sometimes including ament) is made up of a lot of repos, so it's easier to document everything in one place (docs.ros.org) instead of the individual repos. However, it makes sense to add some documentation so people can quickly see what this is for.

I'll take a look at your PR.