Getting started, from scratch:

1. Install git, if you don't have it.

   sudo apt-get install git

2. Install Go.

   Install go https://go.dev/doc/install

   # consider putting these in ~/.bashrc too...
   export GOROOT="$HOME/go"
   export GOPATH="$HOME/gocode"
   export PATH="$PATH:$GOROOT/bin:$GOPATH/bin"
   
   # ... and creating the GOPATH directory structure.
   # (read `go help gopath` for details of this)
   mkdir -p $GOPATH/{src,pkg,bin}

3. Clone sp0rkle's code from github.

   cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/fluffle
   
   # Note: in order to submit patches more easily, you might want to get a github
   # account, fork the bot, and clone from your own writeable version.
   
   # If you do that, clone with:
   git clone git@github.com:<username>/sp0rkle.git
   # and then add my repository as an alternative remote to pull from:
   cd sp0rkle
   git remote add -f -m master fluffle http://github.com/fluffle/sp0rkle.git
   
   # Otherwise, just clone from my repository:
   git clone http://github.com/fluffle/sp0rkle.git

4. Go's module system should fetch deps automatically when you go build.

5. Grab a recent boltdb backup and put it somewhere sensible.

   If you don't know where to get a DB backup from, you possibly shouldn't be submitting patches :-)

6. Code, build, commit, push :)

   git checkout -b myfeature
   while coding in $GOPATH/src/github.com/fluffle/sp0rkle/sp0rkle:
     vim <stuff>:wq
     go build
     # Run local build for testing ...
     ./sp0rkle --servers irc.pl0rt.org[:port]  [--nick=mybot] [--channels='#test']
     ^C
   
   git add <stuff>
   git commit -m "Some useful message about the edit to <stuff>."
   
   # If you cloned from your own repo, push the new branch with:
   git push origin myfeature
   # ... then send me a pull request on github :-)

Here's a more in depth description of a good workflow to use with github: https://gist.github.com/Chaser324/ce0505fbed06b947d962

Testing

Integration tests live in regtest/ subdirectories. Each test dir will spin up a local ergo (https://github.com/ergochat/ergo) IRCd for the test harness and bot binary to connect to. All you need to do is run regtest.sh.

./regtest.sh

Arguments to regtest.sh are passed on to go test verbatim, so you can do:

./regtest.sh ./drivers/seendriver/regtest/ -run TestCommands/seen

Integration tests must be gated by the integration build tag, which regtest.sh sets automatically. Test files should have //go:build integration as their first line.