Getting Started

Welcome to the LHP software management guide! This guide is written for members of the Landslides Hazards Program who are interested in software releases, and is intended for both first-time and experienced developers. The guide includes instructions for each step of the software development process, from planning your code, to conducting reviews, and finalizing a project for release.

Prerequisites

This guide assumes users have an basic understanding of software management with git. If you are new to git, we recommend reading the Git Primer first.

We recommend reading through the guide in order, as it follows the order of the typical software development life cycle. Even if you have already written the software you want to release, we still recommend reading the guide in order, as the introductory sections detail some concepts that may be new (for example, the USGS’s hierarchy of software releases, and forking workflows).

Navigating this guide

This guide is separated into chapters, indicated by blue headings in the navigation sidebar. Each chapter is divided into several pages, which can be accessed using the main tabs in the navigation bar. Alternatively, you can use the Next and Previous buttons at the bottom of each page to progress through the guide. Pages are further divided into sections, represented by headings in the text. You can find links to the sections of the current page in the navigation sidebar; these will be located in a dropdown menu for the page.

Next Steps

The remainder of this chapter begins with a top-level overview of the software management lifecycle. It then provides some information to help you determine the characteristics of your code, and the most appropriate release type. The following chapters will then help:

• Set up a project on Gitlab,

• Conduct various reviews, and

• Finalize a project for release.

Click the Next button to get started.