HackMDGSoC 2023 project ideas for conda-forge
Thanks for your interest in applying for Google Summer of Code with conda-forge. We welcome applications from individuals from all backgrounds, identities and abilities and encourage applications individuals from under-represented groups in tech.
About conda-forge
conda-forge is a community effort and a GitHub organization which contains repositories of conda recipes and thus provides conda packages for a wide range of software. The built distributions are uploaded to anaconda.org/conda-forge and can be installed with conda.
2023 marks the 8th anniversary of the conda-forge organization. Over these 8 years it has served more than 1.2M package artifacts, which account for 10B downloads via anaconda.org. None of this would be possible without the work of more than 4.6K volunteers!
How does conda-forge work?
conda-forge is built for and around the conda packaging ecosystem. A conda recipe contains the dependency metadata and instructions to build and package a particular project, usually from source.
New recipes are first submitted to the conda-forge/staged-recipes repository via a pull request (PR). Once this is reviewed and approved, the recipe is merged and granted its own repository, called feedstock. A feedstock is a standard GitHub repository within the conda-forge organization, containing the user-provided recipe/ and the supporting configuration and tooling required for the builds.
For each PR merged in a feedstock, a series of artifacts is built for the package (changes such as releasing a new version or adding a new dependency require rebuilding the package for ecosystem-wide compatibility). All contributions to a feedstock happen through PRs.
How is conda-forge organized?
The conda-forge organization is led by the core team. The core team also receives support from many volunteers, like staged-recipes reviewers or the domain-specific help-* teams. Each feedstock is mainly maintained by its team of collaborators named after it. Feedstock teams are fluid by design: anyone can step down at any moment and join and take over as long as the feedstock team accepts the PR-driven application.
What's the contribution process?
conda-forge is an open-source project; it is built in the open for traceability and transparency. Continuous integration (CI) logs are publicly available, and everyone is welcome to contribute. We follow a strict fork-based Github-flow workflow: the feedstock branches will build and upload the artifacts to the validation server. For this reason, pull requests must always be opened from personal forks. This workflow is also followed in conda-forge repositories that are not responsible for producing packages.
Project Idea 1 - Modernization of the conda-forge.org website
Abstract
conda-forge.org was created almost 8 years ago (when the whole conda-forge project was started). After 8 years, the site has become outdated. For example, it has not been optimized for mobile use. Moreover, it is not WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) conformant, which makes it inaccessible to many users, especially those with disabilities or those that rely on assistive technology to interact with the web.
This project aims to deliver a new website for conda-forge.org that meets WCAG accessibility standards and improves performance while providing an excellent contributor experience.
Current state
The current Sphinx-based conda-forge.org website is mainly built from the conda-forge.github.io repository and extended by status - which generates a basic conda-forge status dashboard - and a conda-forge blog.
A Docusaurus-based prototype website is available at cf-infra-docs.netlify.app, where new documentation is being written for the conda-forge infrastructure. We will use this site as the playground for the website modernization.
Tasks
- Figma mockups for a new frontpage for desktop and mobile
- Design a conda-forge style guide for other web-based developments
- Work towards WCAG conformance during the design phase and include accessibility annotations for the development phase
- Present proposals to the community and incorporate feedback
Extended tasks
- Implement the new frontpage in Docusaurus (with the corresponding React components)
- Add CI pipelines for automated performance and accessibility tests to prevent regressions in further work
Expected outcomes
- A conda-forge style guide for its new online presence.
- The redesigned landing page passes the SpeedPage and WAVE automated tests.
- The new implementation provides an intuitive and usable user experience.
- A prototype conda-forge.org frontpage redesign is live in cf-infra-docs.
Details
- Prerequisites:
- Previous experience with prototyping or mock-up tools such as Figma
- Experience creating design specs that define the user need, underlying hypotheses, and UX flow
- Some knowledge of accessibility standards
- Bonus points for previous experience in designing accessible experiences
- Nice to have, but not required:
- React and npm
- Comfortable with Git & Github PR-driven workflows
- Familiar with Docusaurus
- Project length: 350 hours
- Priority: Low
- Complexity: Medium
- Potential mentor(s): @jaimergp
