Contribute

Giretra is open source. That means anyone can help shape it. You don’t need to be a developer. If you’ve played the game, spotted a typo, had an idea for a feature, or just want to translate something into your language, that counts. All of it counts.

There are two main repositories on GitHub:

• giretra/giretra is the game engine and play.giretra.com
• giretra/giretra.www is this website

This page explains how to get involved, whatever your skill set.

Pick your thing

There are a lot of ways to contribute. Here are some:

• Report a bug. Something broke or behaved weirdly? Tell us about it.
• Suggest an idea. Got a feature in mind? A rule variant? A UI improvement? Open an issue.
• Write or fix docs. Clarify a confusing section, fix a typo, add examples.
• Translate. Help make Giretra accessible in more languages.
• Design. Improve layouts, icons, card visuals, anything visual.
• Test. Try things out, break things on purpose, tell us what happened.
• Review code. Read through pull requests and share feedback.
• Build a bot. Write an AI player and compete against others.
• Answer questions. Help out other players or contributors who are stuck.

None of these require permission. Just jump in.

Getting started

If you want to contribute code, docs, or translations, here’s the basic flow:

1. Fork the repo. Hit the “Fork” button on GitHub. This gives you your own copy.
2. Create a branch. Name it something descriptive, like fix-scoring-typo or add-malagasy-translation.
3. Make your changes. Edit what you need to edit.
4. Push and open a pull request. Describe what you changed and why.

That’s the whole process. If you’ve never done this before, GitHub has solid guides on forking and pull requests. Don’t stress about getting it perfect on the first try. We’ll work through it together.

Reporting bugs

Found something broken? Open an issue. Include whatever you can:

• What you were doing when it happened
• What you expected to happen
• What actually happened
• Screenshots if you have them

Don’t overthink it. A rough description is infinitely more useful than silence. Even “the scoring page looks weird on mobile” gives us something to work with.

Suggesting ideas

Have an idea? Open an issue and describe it. There’s no specific template you need to follow. Sketch it out however makes sense to you. A paragraph, a bullet list, a napkin drawing attached as an image. Whatever gets the idea across.

We’d rather hear a half-formed idea than miss a good one because someone thought it wasn’t polished enough.

Design and visual art

This is where we need the most help. Giretra is built by developers, and it shows. Card designs, illustrations, animations, color palettes, iconography, layout polish; all of it could use the eye of someone who actually knows what they’re doing visually. If you have skills in graphic design, illustration, UI/UX, motion design, or even just strong opinions about what looks good, we want to hear from you.

Here are some areas that could use attention:

• Card visuals. The cards are functional but far from beautiful. Custom illustrations, better suits, richer textures. Anything that makes the deck feel alive.
• UI polish. Spacing, typography, color consistency, responsive layouts. The kind of details that separate “it works” from “it feels right.”
• Branding and identity. Logo refinements, a cohesive color system, visual language across the site and the platform.
• Animations and interactions. Card dealing, trick resolution, score updates. Subtle motion can make the experience much more satisfying.
• Illustrations. Spot illustrations for documentation pages, empty states, error screens. Anything that adds personality.

You don’t need to write code. You can:

• Attach mockups or screenshots to an issue
• Share a Figma link
• Describe the change in words. “The cards should have more contrast” is a perfectly valid starting point

If this is your thing, please don’t be shy. A project like this lives or dies on how it looks and feels, and right now the visual side is its weakest point.

Build a bot

Giretra has a competitive bot system. If you want to write an AI player that competes against others, check out the Build Your Bot guide. It covers templates, setup, and everything you need to get started.

Code of conduct

Be kind. Assume good intentions. Disagree respectfully. That’s really it.

Everyone contributing to Giretra, whether they’re filing their first issue or reviewing their hundredth pull request, deserves to feel welcome. If someone makes a mistake, help them. If you disagree with an approach, explain why. Keep it constructive.

One last thing

You don’t need anyone’s permission to contribute. If you see something that could be better, go ahead and make it better. Every bug report, every translation, every line of code, every idea sketched out in an issue. It all pushes the project forward.

Start wherever feels right. We’ll figure out the rest together.