# Contributing & Community

We welcome contributions and feedback from all users and developers of
E3SM-Unified. Whether you're updating packages, improving documentation, or
reporting issues, your input helps strengthen the environment and its
community.

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## Ways to Contribute

### ✏️ Documentation

* Suggest improvements to the user guide or technical docs.
* Fix typos or clarify instructions.
* Add usage examples for tools you use regularly.

### 🚀 Suggest or Update Packages

* Request new tools or features by opening a GitHub Issue.
* Propose version updates by:
  * Editing the E3SM Confluence pages defining the next E3SM-Unified version
    (if you have access)
  * Or editing the `meta.yaml` (for conda package) or `defaults.cfg` (for spack
    pacakges) and making a pull request (if you don't have access to E3SM's
    Confluence pages).

### ⚙️ Development & Testing

* Help test release candidates on supported platforms.
* Report issues you encounter.
* Contribute improvements to tools in the E3SM ecosystem (e.g., `mache`,
  `mpas-analysis`, `zppy`, `e3sm_diags`).

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## Getting Started

1. Fork the [e3sm-unified GitHub repository](https://github.com/E3SM-Project/e3sm-unified).
2. Create a new branch for your changes.
3. Submit a pull request (PR).
4. Tag reviewers as needed (e.g., `@xylar`).

We recommend following our naming conventions for release branches (e.g.,
`update-to-1.12.0`).

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## Communication

* GitHub Issues: [E3SM-Unified GitHub](https://github.com/E3SM-Project/e3sm-unified/issues)
* Slack: `#e3sm-help-postproc`
* Email: [xylar@lanl.gov](mailto:xylar@lanl.gov)

Have questions about where to start? Just ask on Slack or open an issue!