Contributing to Open Access Kit

Thank you for helping make privacy tools more accessible. Contributions of all kinds are welcome — new sources, guides, bug fixes, and documentation improvements.

Ways to Contribute

Add a new source

Sources are defined in oak.yaml. OAK supports four source types: rsync, git, http, and local. To add a new software or content source:

1. Fork the repository and create a branch.
2. Add an entry under sources: in oak.yaml with the appropriate type, URL, and verification method.
3. Add the source name to the relevant tiers: entries.
4. Run oak download <source-name> and oak verify <source-name> to confirm it works.
5. Open a pull request describing the source, its license, and why it belongs in OAK.

All bundled content must be freely redistributable. See the license notes in content/guides/resources.md for examples of compatible licenses.

Add or improve a guide

Guides live in content/guides/ as Markdown files. They are rendered to HTML and bundled on every distribution of removable media, as well as published to the project website.

1. Add or edit a .md file in content/guides/.
2. Use relative links between guides (e.g., [Getting Started](getting-started.html)).
3. Run ./oak site to preview the rendered output in docs/guides/.
4. Open a pull request with a brief description of the new or updated content.

Fix a bug or improve the CLI

1. Read ARCHITECTURE.md to understand the build pipeline.
2. Run go test ./... to verify the existing tests pass.
3. Make your change, add tests if appropriate, and open a pull request.

Code Style

• Standard Go formatting (gofmt). The CI linter (golangci-lint) enforces this.
• Keep changes minimal and focused. One concern per PR.
• Configuration-driven where possible — prefer extending oak.yaml over hard-coding.

License

By contributing, you agree that your contributions will be licensed under the same terms as the project: GPL v3 for code, CC BY-SA 4.0 for content.