## Contributing in Issues

For any issue, there are fundamentally three ways an individual can contribute:

1. By opening the issue for discussion: For instance, if you believe that you
   have discovered a bug in Tokio, creating a new issue in [the tokio-rs/tokio
   issue tracker][issue] is the way to report it.

2. By helping to triage the issue: This can be done by providing
   supporting details (a test case that demonstrates a bug), providing
   suggestions on how to address the issue, or ensuring that the issue is tagged
   correctly.

3. By helping to resolve the issue: Typically this is done either in the form of
   demonstrating that the issue reported is not a problem after all, or more
   often, by opening a Pull Request that changes some bit of something in
   Tokio in a concrete and reviewable manner.

[issue]: https://github.com/tokio-rs/tokio/issues

**Anybody can participate in any stage of contribution**. We urge you to
participate in the discussion around bugs and participate in reviewing PRs.

### Asking for General Help

If you have reviewed existing documentation and still have questions or are
having problems, you can [open a discussion] asking for help.

In exchange for receiving help, we ask that you contribute back a documentation
PR that helps others avoid the problems that you encountered.

[open a discussion]: https://github.com/tokio-rs/tokio/discussions/new/choose

### Submitting a Bug Report

When opening a new issue in the Tokio issue tracker, you will be presented
with a basic template that should be filled in. If you believe that you have
uncovered a bug, please fill out this form, following the template to the best
of your ability. Do not worry if you cannot answer every detail, just fill in
what you can.

The two most important pieces of information we need in order to properly
evaluate the report is a description of the behavior you are seeing and a simple
test case we can use to recreate the problem on our own. If we cannot recreate
the issue, it becomes impossible for us to fix.

In order to rule out the possibility of bugs introduced by userland code, test
cases should be limited, as much as possible, to using only Tokio APIs.

See [How to create a Minimal, Complete, and Verifiable example][mcve].

[mcve]: https://stackoverflow.com/help/mcve

### Triaging a Bug Report

Once an issue has been opened, it is not uncommon for there to be discussion
around it. Some contributors may have differing opinions about the issue,
including whether the behavior being seen is a bug or a feature. This discussion
is part of the process and should be kept focused, helpful, and professional.

Short, clipped responses—that provide neither additional context nor supporting
detail—are not helpful or professional. To many, such responses are simply
annoying and unfriendly.

Contributors are encouraged to help one another make forward progress as much as
possible, empowering one another to solve issues collaboratively. If you choose
to comment on an issue that you feel either is not a problem that needs to be
fixed, or if you encounter information in an issue that you feel is incorrect,
explain why you feel that way with additional supporting context, and be willing
to be convinced that you may be wrong. By doing so, we can often reach the
correct outcome much faster.

### Resolving a Bug Report

In the majority of cases, issues are resolved by opening a Pull Request. The
process for opening and reviewing a Pull Request is similar to that of opening
and triaging issues, but carries with it a necessary review and approval
workflow that ensures that the proposed changes meet the minimal quality and
functional guidelines of the Tokio project.
