zitadel/CONTRIBUTING.md

Contributing to ZITADEL

Introduction

Thank you for your interest about how to contribute! As you might know there is more than code to contribute. You can find all information needed to start contributing here.

Please give us and our community the chance to get rid of security vulnerabilities by responsibly disclose this kind of issues by contacting security@zitadel.com.

The strongest part of a community is the possibility to share thoughts. That's why we try to react as soon as possible to your ideas, thoughts and feedback. We love to discuss as much as possible in an open space like in the issues and discussions section here or in our chat, but we understand your doubts and provide further contact options here.

If you want to give an answer or be part of discussions please be kind. Treat others like you want to be treated. Read more about our code of conduct here.

What can I contribute?

For people who are new to ZITADEL: We flag issues which are a good starting point to start contributing. You find them here

Make ZITADEL more popular and give it a ⭐

Help shaping the future of ZITADEL:

• Join our chat and discuss with us or others.
• Ask or answer questions in the issues section
• Share your thoughts and ideas in the discussions section

Contribute

• Contribute code
• If you found a mistake on our docs page or something is missing please read the docs section
• Translate and improve texts

Follow @zitadel on twitter

Quick Start for Contributors

ZITADEL uses pnpm as package manager and Turbo for build orchestration across the monorepo. Here are the most common commands you'll need:

Prerequisites

• Node version v20.x
• pnpm version 9.x
• Docker for running databases and services

Common Development Commands

# Install all dependencies across the monorepo
pnpm install

# Start the backend database and ZITADEL server
docker compose --file ./e2e/docker-compose.yaml up --detach zitadel

# Develop the Console (Angular app)
pnpm turbo dev --filter=console

# Develop the Login UI (Next.js app)
pnpm turbo dev --filter=@zitadel/login

# Develop the Documentation (Docusaurus)
pnpm turbo dev --filter=zitadel-docs

# Build everything
pnpm turbo build

# Lint and fix code across all packages
pnpm turbo lint

# Run tests
pnpm turbo test

# Clean up
docker compose --file ./e2e/docker-compose.yaml down

Monorepo Structure

The repository is organized as follows:

Package	Description	Technology	Development Command
console	Management UI (post-login)	Angular, TypeScript	pnpm turbo dev --filter=console
@zitadel/login	Authentication UI	Next.js, React	pnpm turbo dev --filter=@zitadel/login
zitadel-docs	Documentation site	Docusaurus	pnpm turbo dev --filter=zitadel-docs
@zitadel/client	TypeScript client library	TypeScript	pnpm turbo build --filter=@zitadel/client
@zitadel/proto	Protocol buffer definitions	Protobuf	pnpm turbo generate --filter=@zitadel/proto

Development Workflow

1. Start the backend: docker compose --file ./e2e/docker-compose.yaml up --detach zitadel
2. Choose your focus: Run one of the development commands above
3. Make changes: Edit code with live reload feedback
4. Test your changes: Use the appropriate test commands
5. Cleanup: docker compose --file ./e2e/docker-compose.yaml down

How to contribute

We strongly recommend to talk to us before you start contributing to streamline our and your work.

We accept contributions through pull requests. You need a github account for that. If you are unfamiliar with git have a look at Github's documentation on creating forks and creating pull requests. Please draft the pull request as soon as possible. Go through the following checklist before you submit the final pull request:

Submit a pull request (PR)

1. Fork the zitadel/zitadel repository on GitHub

2. On your fork, commit your changes to a new branch

   git checkout -b my-fix-branch main

3. Make your changes following the guidelines in this guide. Make sure that all tests pass.

4. Commit the changes on the new branch

   git commit --all

5. Merge the latest commit of the main-branch

6. Push the changes to your branch on Github

   git push origin my-fix-branch

7. Use Semantic Release commit messages to simplify creation of release notes. In the title of the pull request correct tagging is required and will be requested by the reviewers.

8. On GitHub, send a pull request to zitadel:main. Request review from one of the maintainers.

Review a pull request

The reviewers will provide you feedback and approve your changes as soon as they are satisfied. If we ask you for changes in the code, you can follow the GitHub Guide to incorporate feedback in your pull request.

Commit messages

Make sure you use semantic release messages format.

<type>(<scope>): <short summary>

Type

Must be one of the following:

• feat: New Feature
• fix: Bug Fix
• docs: Documentation

Scope

This is optional to indicate which component is affected. In doubt, leave blank (<type>: <short summary>)

Short summary

Provide a brief description of the change.

Quality assurance

Please make sure you cover your changes with tests before marking a Pull Request as ready for review:

• Integration tests against the gRPC server ensure that one or multiple API calls that belong together return the expected results.
• Integration tests against the gRPC server ensure that probable good and bad read and write permissions are tested.
• Integration tests against the gRPC server ensure that the API is easily usable despite eventual consistency.
• Integration tests against the gRPC server ensure that all probable login and registration flows are covered."
• Integration tests ensure that certain commands emit expected events that trigger notifications.
• Integration tests ensure that certain events trigger expected notifications.

Contribute

The code consists of the following parts:

name	description	language	where to find
backend	Service that serves the grpc(-web) and RESTful API	go	API implementation
console	Frontend the user interacts with after log in	Angular, Typescript	./console
login	Modern authentication UI built with Next.js	Next.js, React, TypeScript	./login
API definitions	Specifications of the API	Protobuf	./proto/zitadel
docs	Project documentation made with docusaurus	Docusaurus	./docs

Important: This repository uses pnpm as package manager and Turbo for build orchestration. All frontend packages (console, login, docs) are managed as a monorepo with shared dependencies and optimized builds.

Please validate and test the code before you contribute.

We add the label "good first issue" for problems we think are a good starting point to contribute to ZITADEL.

• Issues for first time contributors
• All issues

General Guidelines

Gender Neutrality and Inclusive Language

We are committed to creating a welcoming and inclusive community for all developers, regardless of their gender identity or expression. To achieve this, we are actively working to ensure that our contribution guidelines are gender-neutral and use inclusive language.

Use gender-neutral pronouns: Don't use gender-specific pronouns unless the person you're referring to is actually that gender. In particular, don't use he, him, his, she, or her as gender-neutral pronouns, and don't use he/she or (s)he or other such punctuational approaches. Instead, use the singular they.

Choose gender-neutral alternatives: Opt for gender-neutral terms instead of gendered ones whenever possible. Replace "policeman" with "police officer," "manpower" with "workforce," and "businessman" with "entrepreneur" or "businessperson."

Avoid ableist language: Ableist language includes words or phrases such as crazy, insane, blind to or blind eye to, cripple, dumb, and others. Choose alternative words depending on the context.

API

ZITADEL follows an API first approach. This means all features can not only be accessed via the UI but also via the API. The API is designed to be used by different clients, such as web applications, mobile applications, and other services. Therefore, the API is designed to be easy to use, consistent, and reliable. Please check out the dedicated API guidelines page when contributing to the API.

Developing ZITADEL with Dev Containers

Follow the instructions provided by your code editor/IDE to initiate the development container. This typically involves opening the "Command Palette" or similar functionality and searching for commands related to "Dev Containers" or "Remote Containers". The quick start guide for VS Code can found here

When you are connected to the container run the following commands to start ZITADEL.

make compile && ./zitadel start-from-init --masterkey MasterkeyNeedsToHave32Characters --tlsMode disabled

ZITADEL serves traffic as soon as you can see the following log line:

INFO[0001] server is listening on [::]:8080

Backend/login

By executing the commands from this section, you run everything you need to develop the ZITADEL backend locally. Using Docker Compose, you run a PostgreSQL on your local machine. With make, you build a debuggable ZITADEL binary and run it using delve. Then, you test your changes via the console your binary is serving at http://localhost:8080 and by verifying the database. Once you are happy with your changes, you run end-to-end tests and tear everything down.

ZITADEL uses golangci-lint for code quality checks. Please use this configuration when running golangci-lint. We recommend to set golangci-lint as linter in your IDE.

The commands in this section are tested against the following software versions:

• Docker version 20.10.17
• Go version 1.22
• Delve 1.9.1

Make some changes to the source code, then run the database locally.

# You just need the db service to develop the backend against.
docker compose --file ./e2e/docker-compose.yaml up --detach db

Build the binary. This takes some minutes, but you can speed up rebuilds.

make compile

Note: With this command, several steps are executed. For speeding up rebuilds, you can reexecute only specific steps you think are necessary based on your changes.
Generating gRPC stubs: make core_api
Running unit tests: make core_unit_test
Generating the console: make console_build console_move
Build the binary: make compile

You can now run and debug the binary in .artifacts/zitadel/zitadel using your favourite IDE, for example GoLand. You can test if ZITADEL does what you expect by using the UI at http://localhost:8080/ui/console. Also, you can verify the data by running psql "host=localhost dbname=zitadel sslmode=disable" and running SQL queries.

Run Local Unit Tests

To test the code without dependencies, run the unit tests:

make core_unit_test

Run Local Integration Tests

Integration tests are run as gRPC clients against a running ZITADEL server binary. The server binary is typically build with coverage enabled. It is also possible to run a ZITADEL sever in a debugger and run the integrations tests like that. In order to run the server, a database is required.

In order to prepare the local system, the following will bring up the database, builds a coverage binary, initializes the database and starts the sever.

make core_integration_db_up core_integration_server_start

When this job is finished, you can run individual package integration test through your IDE or command-line. The actual integration test clients reside in the integration_test subdirectory of the package they aim to test. Integration test files use the integration build tag, in order to be excluded from regular unit tests. Because of the server-client split, Go is usually unaware of changes in server code and tends to cache test results. Pas -count 1 to disable test caching.

Example command to run a single package integration test:

go test -count 1 -tags integration ./internal/api/grpc/management/integration_test

To run all available integration tests:

make core_integration_test_packages

When you change any ZITADEL server code, be sure to rebuild and restart the server before the next test run.

make core_integration_server_stop core_integration_server_start

To cleanup after testing (deletes the database!):

make core_integration_server_stop core_integration_db_down

The test binary has the race detector enabled. core_core_integration_server_stop checks for any race logs reported by Go and will print them along a 66 exit code when found. Note that the actual race condition may have happened anywhere during the server lifetime, including start, stop or serving gRPC requests during tests.

Run Local End-to-End Tests

To test the whole system, including the console UI and the login UI, run the E2E tests.

# Build the production docker image
export ZITADEL_IMAGE=zitadel:local GOOS=linux
make docker_image

# If you made changes in the e2e directory, make sure you reformat the files
pnpm turbo lint --filter=e2e

# Run the tests
docker compose --file ./e2e/docker-compose.yaml run --service-ports e2e

When you are happy with your changes, you can cleanup your environment.

# Stop and remove the docker containers for zitadel and the database
docker compose --file ./e2e/docker-compose.yaml down

Run Local End-to-End Tests Against Your Dev Server Console

If you also make changes to the console, you can run the test suite against your locally built backend code and frontend server.

# Install dependencies (from repository root)
pnpm install

# Run the tests interactively
cd ./e2e && pnpm run open:golangangular

# Run the tests non-interactively
cd ./e2e && pnpm run e2e:golangangular

When you are happy with your changes, you can cleanup your environment.

# Stop and remove the docker containers for zitadel and the database
docker compose --file ./e2e/docker-compose.yaml down

Console

By executing the commands from this section, you run everything you need to develop the console locally. Using Docker Compose, you run PostgreSQL and the latest release of ZITADEL on your local machine. You use the ZITADEL container as backend for your console. The console is run in your Node environment using a local development server for Angular, so you have fast feedback about your changes.

We use pnpm as package manager and Turbo for build orchestration. Use angular-eslint/Prettier for linting/formatting, so please run pnpm turbo lint --filter=console before committing. (VSCode users, check out this ESLint extension and this Prettier extension to fix lint and formatting issues in development)

Once you are happy with your changes, you run end-to-end tests and tear everything down.

The commands in this section are tested against the following software versions:

• Docker version 20.10.17
• Node version v20.x
• pnpm version 9.x
• Cypress runtime dependencies

Note for WSL2 on Windows 10

Following the suggestions here subsequently here may need to XLaunch and configure your DISPLAY variable. Use at your own risk.

1. Install VcXsrv Windows X Server
2. Set the target of your shortcut to "C:\Program Files\VcXsrv\xlaunch.exe" -ac
3. In WSL2 run export DISPLAY=$(cat /etc/resolv.conf | grep nameserver | awk '{print $2}'):0 to set your DISPLAY variable
4. When starting XLaunch, make sure to disable access control

Run the database and the latest backend locally.

# Start from the root of the repository
# You just need the db and the zitadel services to develop the console against.
docker compose --file ./e2e/docker-compose.yaml up --detach zitadel

When the backend is ready, you have the latest zitadel exposed at http://localhost:8080. You can now run a local development server with live code reloading at http://localhost:4200. To allow console access via http://localhost:4200, you have to configure the ZITADEL backend.

1. Navigate to http://localhost:8080/ui/console/projects.
2. When prompted, login with zitadel-admin@zitadel.localhost and Password1!
3. Select the ZITADEL project.
4. Select the Console application.
5. Select Redirect Settings
6. Add http://localhost:4200/auth/callback to the Redirect URIs
7. Add http://localhost:4200/signedout to the Post Logout URIs
8. Select the Save button

You can run the local console development server now.

# Install dependencies (from repository root)
pnpm install

# Option 1: Run console development server with Turbo (recommended)
pnpm turbo dev --filter=console

# Option 2: Run console development server directly
cd ./console && pnpm start

# Option 3: Build and serve console (production build)
pnpm turbo build --filter=console
cd ./console && pnpm serve

# If you don't want to develop against http://localhost:8080, you can use another environment
ENVIRONMENT_JSON_URL=https://my-cloud-instance-abcdef.zitadel.cloud/ui/console/assets/environment.json pnpm turbo dev --filter=console

Navigate to http://localhost:4200/. Make some changes to the source code and see how the browser is automatically updated.

Console Development Scripts

Here are the most useful scripts for console development:

# Generate protobuf files (happens automatically with Turbo dependencies)
pnpm turbo generate --filter=console

# Run development server with live reload
pnpm turbo dev --filter=console

# Build for production
pnpm turbo build --filter=console

# Lint and fix code
pnpm turbo lint --filter=console

# Run unit tests
pnpm turbo test --filter=console

# Run all console-related tasks
pnpm turbo dev lint test --filter=console

After making changes to the code, you should run the end-to-end-tests. Open another shell.

# Reformat your console code using Turbo
pnpm turbo lint --filter=console

# Change to the e2e directory
cd ./e2e

# If you made changes in the e2e directory, make sure you reformat the files here too
pnpm run lint:fix

# Install pnpm dependencies
pnpm install

# Run all e2e tests
pnpm run e2e:angular -- --headed

You can also open the test suite interactively for fast feedback on specific tests.

# Run tests interactively
pnpm run open:angular

If you also make changes to the backend code, you can run the test against your locally built backend code and frontend server

pnpm run open:golangangular
pnpm run e2e:golangangular

When you are happy with your changes, you can format your code and cleanup your environment

# Stop and remove the docker containers for zitadel and the database
docker compose --file ./e2e/docker-compose.yaml down

Login UI

The Login UI is a Next.js application that provides the user interface for authentication flows. It's located in the ./login directory and uses pnpm and Turbo for development.

Prerequisites

• Node version v20.x
• pnpm version 9.x
• Docker for running the backend

Development Setup

# Start from the root of the repository
# Start the database and ZITADEL backend
docker compose --file ./e2e/docker-compose.yaml up --detach zitadel

# Install dependencies
pnpm install

# Option 1: Run login development server with Turbo (recommended)
pnpm turbo dev --filter=@zitadel/login

# Option 2: Run login development server directly
cd ./login && pnpm dev

# Option 3: Build and serve login (production build)
pnpm turbo build --filter=@zitadel/login
cd ./login && pnpm start

The login UI will be available at http://localhost:3000.

Login Development Scripts

Here are the most useful scripts for login development:

# Generate protobuf files (happens automatically with Turbo dependencies)
pnpm turbo generate --filter=@zitadel/login

# Run development server with live reload
pnpm turbo dev --filter=@zitadel/login

# Build for production
pnpm turbo build --filter=@zitadel/login

# Lint and fix code
pnpm turbo lint --filter=@zitadel/login

# Run unit tests
pnpm turbo test:unit --filter=@zitadel/login

# Run integration tests
pnpm turbo test:integration --filter=@zitadel/login

# Run acceptance tests
pnpm turbo test:acceptance --filter=@zitadel/login

# Run all login-related tasks
pnpm turbo dev lint test:unit --filter=@zitadel/login

Login Architecture

The login application consists of multiple packages:

• @zitadel/login - Main Next.js application
• @zitadel/client - TypeScript client library for ZITADEL APIs
• @zitadel/proto - Protocol buffer definitions and generated code

The build process uses Turbo to orchestrate dependencies:

1. Proto generation (@zitadel/proto#generate)
2. Client library build (@zitadel/client#build)
3. Login application build (@zitadel/login#build)

Testing the Login UI

# Run unit tests
pnpm turbo test:unit --filter=@zitadel/login

# Run integration tests (requires running backend)
pnpm turbo test:integration --filter=@zitadel/login

# Run acceptance tests
pnpm turbo test:acceptance --filter=@zitadel/login

# Run all tests
pnpm turbo test:unit test:integration test:acceptance --filter=@zitadel/login

When you are happy with your changes, cleanup your environment:

# Stop and remove the docker containers
docker compose --file ./e2e/docker-compose.yaml down

Contribute docs

Project documentation is made with Docusaurus and is located under ./docs. The documentation uses pnpm and Turbo for development and build processes.

Local Development

# Install dependencies (from repository root)
pnpm install

# Option 1: Run docs development server with Turbo (recommended)
pnpm turbo dev --filter=zitadel-docs

# Option 2: Run docs development server directly
cd ./docs && pnpm start

# Option 3: Build and serve docs (production build)
pnpm turbo build --filter=zitadel-docs
cd ./docs && pnpm serve

Docs Development Scripts

Here are the most useful scripts for docs development:

# Generate API documentation and configuration docs
pnpm turbo generate --filter=zitadel-docs

# Run development server with live reload
pnpm turbo dev --filter=zitadel-docs

# Build for production
pnpm turbo build --filter=zitadel-docs

# Lint and fix code
pnpm turbo lint --filter=zitadel-docs

# Run all docs-related tasks
pnpm turbo dev lint build --filter=zitadel-docs

The docs build process automatically:

1. Downloads required protoc plugins
2. Generates gRPC documentation from proto files
3. Generates API documentation from OpenAPI specs
4. Copies configuration files
5. Builds the Docusaurus site

Local testing

The documentation server will be available at http://localhost:3000 with live reload for fast development feedback.

Style guide

• Code with variables: Make sure that code snippets can be used by setting environment variables, instead of manually replacing a placeholder.
• Embedded files: When embedding mdx files, make sure the template ist prefixed by "_" (lowdash). The content will be rendered inside the parent page, but is not accessible individually (eg, by search).
• Don't repeat yourself: When using the same content in multiple places, save and manage the content as separate file and make use of embedded files to import it into other docs pages.
• Embedded code: You can embed code snippets from a repository. See the plugin for usage.

Following the Google style guide is highly recommended. Its clear and concise guidelines ensure consistency and effective communication within the wider developer community.

The style guide covers a lot of material, so their highlights page provides an overview of its most important points. Some of the points stated in the highlights that we care about most are given below:

• Be conversational and friendly without being frivolous.
• Use sentence case for document titles and section headings.
• Use active voice: make clear who's performing the action.
• Use descriptive link text.

Docs pull request

When making a pull request use docs(<scope>): <short summary> as title for the semantic release. Scope can be left empty (omit the brackets) or refer to the top navigation sections.

Contribute internationalization

ZITADEL loads translations from four files:

• Console texts
• Login interface
• Email notification
• Common texts for success or error toasts

You may edit the texts in these files or create a new file for additional language support. Make sure you set the locale (ISO 639-1 code) as the name of the new language file. Please make sure that the languages within the files remain in their own language, e.g. German must always be `Deutsch. If you have added support for a new language, please also ensure that it is added in the list of languages in all the other language files.

You also have to add some changes to the following files:

• Register Local File
• Add Supported Language
• Customized Text Docs
• Add language option

Want to start ZITADEL?

You can find an installation guide for all the different environments here: https://zitadel.com/docs/self-hosting/deploy/overview

Did you find a security flaw?

• Please read Security Policy.

Product management

The ZITADEL Team works with an agile product management methodology. You can find all the issues prioritized and ordered in the product board.

Sprint

We want to deliver a new release every second week. So we plan everything in two-week sprints. Each Tuesday we estimate new issues and on Wednesday the last sprint will be reviewed and the next one will be planned. After a sprint ends a new version of ZITADEL will be released, and publish to ZITADEL Cloud the following Monday.

If there are some critical or urgent issues we will have a look at it earlier, than the two weeks. To show the community the needed information, each issue gets attributes and labels.

About the attributes

You can find the attributes on the project "Product Management".

State

The state should reflect the progress of the issue and what is going on right now.

• No status: Issue just got added and has to be looked at.
• 🧐 Investigating: We are currently investigating to find out what the problem is, which priority it should have and what has to be implemented. Or we need some more information from the author.
• 📨 Product backlog: If an issue is in the backlog, it is not currently being worked on. These are recorded so that they can be worked on in the future. Issues with this state do not have to be completely defined yet.
• 📝 Prioritized product backlog: An issue with the state "Prioritized Backlog" is ready for the refinement from the perspective of the product owner (PO) to implement. This means the developer can find all the relevant information and acceptance criteria in the issue.
• 🔖 Ready: The issue is ready to take into a sprint. Difference to "prioritized..." is that the complexity is defined by the team.
• 📋 Sprint backlog: The issue is scheduled for the current sprint.
• 🏗 In progress: Someone is working on this issue right now. The issue will get an assignee as soon as it is in progress.
• 👀 In review: The issue is in review. Please add someone to review your issue or let us know that it is ready to review with a comment on your pull request.
• ✅ Done: The issue is implemented and merged to main.

Priority

Priority shows you the priority the ZITADEL team has given this issue. In general the higher the demand from customers and community for the feature, the higher the priority.

• 🌋 Critical: This is a security issue or something that has to be fixed urgently, because the software is not usable or highly vulnerable.
• 🏔 High: These are the issues the ZITADEL team is currently focusing on and will be implemented as soon as possible.
• 🏕 Medium: After all the high issues are done these will be next.
• 🏝 Low: This is low in priority and will probably not be implemented in the next time or just if someone has some time in between.

Complexity

This should give you an indication how complex the issue is. It's not about the hours or effort it takes. Everything that is higher than 8 should be split in smaller parts.

1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13

About the labels

There are a few general labels that don't belong to a specific category.

• good first issue: This label shows contributors, that it is an easy entry point to start developing on ZITADEL.
• help wanted: The author is seeking help on this topic, this may be from an internal ZITADEL team member or external contributors.

Category

The category shows which part of ZITADEL is affected.

• category: backend: The backend includes the APIs, event store, command and query side. This is developed in golang.
• category: ci: ci is all about continues integration and pipelines.
• category: design: All about the ux/ui of ZITADEL
• category: docs: Adjustments or new documentations, this can be found in the docs folder.
• category: frontend: The frontend concerns on the one hand the ZITADEL management console (Angular) and on the other hand the login (gohtml)
• category: infra: Infrastructure does include many different parts. E.g Terraform-provider, docker, metrics, etc.
• category: translation: Everything concerning translations or new languages

Language

The language shows you in which programming language the affected part is written

• lang: angular
• lang: go
• lang: javascript