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Zeal is a small, focused tool and every contribution matters. Whether you’re reporting a bug, proposing a feature, or submitting a pull request, this page explains how to do it well.

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Bug reports

Open an issue on GitHub and include:
  • What you ran — the full command and a sample of the input
  • What you expected to happen
  • What happened instead (paste the full output or error message)
  • Your Zig version (zig version)
The more specific the report, the faster it can be fixed. A minimal reproducing input that triggers the bug is especially helpful.

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Feature requests

Open an issue describing the use case. Concrete examples — actual query strings and log lines — make it much easier to evaluate whether the feature fits Zeal’s scope and how it should behave.

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Pull requests

1

Fork and create a branch

Fork the repository and create a branch from main.
2

Make your change

Implement your fix or feature. Every .zig source file has test blocks at the bottom — use them as a guide.
3

Add or update tests

Run zig build test and make sure all tests pass. Add new tests for any new behaviour.
4

Format the code

Run zig fmt src/ before committing. Formatting is enforced in CI and unformatted code will fail the check.
5

Open a pull request

Push your branch and open a PR with a clear description of what the change does and why.

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Code style guidelines

  • Formatting: Follow zig fmt output exactly — this is enforced by CI.
  • Doc comments: Use /// on all public declarations.
  • Function design: Keep functions short and composable.
  • Memory: Prefer zero-copy slices over allocations wherever possible.
  • Tests: Cover edge cases — empty input, missing fields, and malformed data are all worth testing.

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Commit message conventions

Use conventional-style prefixes to make the history easy to scan: 
fix: handle empty JSON objects in log_parser
feat: add MATCHES operator with regex support
test: add timezone offset parsing tests
docs: update README with new examples
By contributing, you agree that your changes will be licensed under the MIT License.

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