Contributing with DCO sign-off

Contributions to Chantico requires Developer’s Certificate of origin (DCO), as stated in our contribution guide. This document describes several ways to handle DCO sign-off with git for developers wishing to contribute to the Chantico project.

Using DCO sign-off

Git CLI

This can be configured with git CLI in at least the following ways:

  1. Plain option: Use the default git commit -s command when committing.
  2. Commit message hook: In order to be able to commit with commit -m while also using DCO, add a git message hook for this cloned repository to add the sign-off automatically. Add the following lines to your local repository’s .git/hooks/commit-msg:
#!/bin/sh
SIGNATURE="Signed-off-by: `git config --global --get user.name` <`git config --global --get user.email`>"
grep -qs "^${SIGNATURE}" "$1" || echo "\n${SIGNATURE}" >> "$1"
  1. Git aliases: Another option to configure this automatically is with git aliases (shortcuts). In this way you can add the -s field to the commit command. Add the following lines to your ~/.gitconfig.
[alias]
  cmsg = commit -s -m
  camend = commit -s --amend

To add sign-offs retroactively, use git rebase with signoff option, like so git rebase --signoff HEAD^^. Use as many ^ as there are commits in your pull requests. If the commits are already pushed, a force push should be performed afterwards.

VSCode

When using git from the VSCode IDE there is an option to include DCO sign-off by setting the option “Git: Always Sign Off” (alwaysSignOff), either for user or workspace.