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Contributing to birdweatheR

Thank you for your interest in contributing to birdweatheR! This document outlines how to report bugs, request features, and contribute code.

Reporting bugs

Please use the bug report issue template and include:

  • A minimal reproducible example (use reprex::reprex() if possible)
  • The output of sessionInfo()
  • The full error message or unexpected output

Requesting features

Use the feature request template to suggest new functions, additional API filters, or improvements to existing behavior.

Contributing code

  1. Fork the repository and create a branch from main
  2. Make your changes, following the code style guidelines below
  3. Run devtools::check() and resolve any errors or warnings
  4. Submit a pull request with a clear description of what changed and why

Code style

  • Follow the tidyverse style guide for general R conventions (naming, spacing)
  • This package uses data.table throughout — new contributions should follow the same pattern rather than introducing dplyr or other data manipulation dependencies
  • Use lintr::lint_package() to check for style issues before submitting
  • All new functions must have roxygen2 documentation (@param, @return, @examples)
  • Examples that require an API connection must be wrapped in \dontrun{}

Adding new API functions

If you are wrapping a new BirdWeather API endpoint:

  • Follow the existing pattern in R/get_detections.R for pagination and retry logic
  • Use fetch_page_with_retry() for any paginated GraphQL queries
  • Return a flat data.table — no nested lists in the output
  • Add the function to NAMESPACE via @export and re-run devtools::document()

Questions

For general questions about the package or the BirdWeather API, please open an issue rather than emailing the maintainers directly — this keeps answers visible to the community.

For questions about the BirdWeather platform itself, see the BirdWeather documentation or contact the BirdWeather team.