Getting Involved

LLVM welcomes contributions of all kinds. To get started, please review the following topics:

Contributing to LLVM
An overview on how to contribute to LLVM.
LLVM Developer Policy
The LLVM project’s policy towards developers and their contributions.
LLVM Code-Review Policy and Practices
The LLVM project’s code-review process.
LLVM Community Support Policy
The LLVM support policy for core and non-core components.
Sphinx Quickstart Template
A template + tutorial for writing new Sphinx documentation. It is meant to be read in source form.
Code Reviews with Phabricator
Describes how to use the Phabricator code review tool hosted on http://reviews.llvm.org/ and its command line interface, Arcanist.
How to submit an LLVM bug report
Instructions for properly submitting information about any bugs you run into in the LLVM system.
LLVM Bug Life Cycle
Describes how bugs are reported, triaged and closed.
LLVM Coding Standards
Details the LLVM coding standards and provides useful information on writing efficient C++ code.
Bisecting LLVM code
Describes how to use git bisect on LLVM’s repository.

Development Process

Information about LLVM’s development process.

Creating an LLVM Project
How-to guide and templates for new projects that use the LLVM infrastructure. The templates (directory organization, Makefiles, and test tree) allow the project code to be located outside (or inside) the llvm/ tree, while using LLVM header files and libraries.
How To Release LLVM To The Public
This is a guide to preparing LLVM releases. Most developers can ignore it.
How To Validate a New Release
This is a guide to validate a new release, during the release process. Most developers can ignore it.
How To Add Your Build Configuration To LLVM Buildbot Infrastructure
Instructions for adding new builder to LLVM buildbot master.
Advice on Packaging LLVM
Advice on packaging LLVM into a distribution.
Release notes for the current release
This describes new features, known bugs, and other limitations.

Mailing Lists

If you can’t find what you need in these docs, try consulting the mailing lists. In addition to the traditional mailing lists there is also a Discourse server available.

Developer’s List (llvm-dev)
This list is for people who want to be included in technical discussions of LLVM. People post to this list when they have questions about writing code for or using the LLVM tools. It is relatively low volume.
Commits Archive (llvm-commits)
This list contains all commit messages that are made when LLVM developers commit code changes to the repository. It also serves as a forum for patch review (i.e. send patches here). It is useful for those who want to stay on the bleeding edge of LLVM development. This list is very high volume.
Bugs & Patches Archive (llvm-bugs)
This list gets emailed every time a bug is opened and closed. It is higher volume than the LLVM-dev list.
Test Results Archive (llvm-testresults)
A message is automatically sent to this list by every active nightly tester when it completes. As such, this list gets email several times each day, making it a high volume list.
LLVM Announcements List (llvm-announce)
This is a low volume list that provides important announcements regarding LLVM. It gets email about once a month.

Online Sync-Ups

A number of regular calls are organized on specific topics. It should be expected that the range of topics will change over time. At the time of writing, the following sync-ups are organized:

LLVM regular sync-up calls
Topic Frequency Calendar link Minutes/docs link
RISC-V Every 2 weeks on Thursday ics gcal  
Scalable Vectors and Arm SVE Monthly, every 3rd Tuesday ics gcal Minutes/docs
ML Guided Compiler Optimizations Monthly   Minutes/docs
LLVM security group Monthly, every 3rd Tuesday ics gcal Minutes/docs
CIRCT Weekly, on Wednesday   Minutes/docs
MLIR design meetings Weekly, on Thursdays   Minutes/docs
flang Multiple meeting series, documented here    
OpenMP Multiple meeting series, documented here    
LLVM Alias Analysis Every 4 weeks on Tuesdays ics Minutes/docs
Windows/COFF related developments Every 2 months on Thursday   Minutes/docs
Vector Predication Every 2 weeks on Tuesdays, 3pm UTC   Minutes/docs
LLVM Pointer Authentication Every month on Mondays ics Minutes/docs
MemorySSA in LLVM Every 8 weeks on Mondays ics gcal Minutes/docs

IRC

Users and developers of the LLVM project (including subprojects such as Clang) can be found in #llvm on irc.oftc.net.

This channel has several bots.

  • Buildbot reporters
  • robot - Bugzilla linker. %bug <number>
  • clang-bot - A geordi instance running near-trunk clang instead of gcc.

In addition to the traditional IRC there is a Discord chat server available. To sign up, please use this invitation link.

Meetups and social events

Besides developer meetings and conferences, there are several user groups called LLVM Socials. We greatly encourage you to join one in your city. Or start a new one if there is none:

How to start LLVM Social in your town

Community wide proposals

Proposals for massive changes in how the community behaves and how the work flow can be better.

LLVM Community Code of Conduct
Proposal to adopt a code of conduct on the LLVM social spaces (lists, events, IRC, etc).
Moving LLVM Projects to GitHub
Proposal to move from SVN/Git to GitHub.
Bugpoint Redesign
Design doc for a redesign of the Bugpoint tool.
“llvm-libc” C Standard Library
Proposal to add a libc implementation under the LLVM project.
Test-Suite Extensions
Proposals for additional benchmarks/programs for llvm’s test-suite.
Variable Names Plan
Proposal to change the variable names coding standard.
Vectorization Plan
Proposal to model the process and upgrade the infrastructure of LLVM’s Loop Vectorizer.
Vector Predication Roadmap
Proposal for predicated vector instructions in LLVM.