Minetest Game development

This page describes how development of Minetest Game is done.

Direction

• Ensure balanced gameplay while still adding new and useful items/nodes/etc.
• No changes to the basic concepts (e.g. workbench won't get added)
• No additions that are decided to be too much (e.g. adding homedecor in its entirety)
• Focus on stability and completeness (no half-finished stuff)
• Improve/add API to allow mods to extend the base features (e.g. API for new crops for farming)

Note: To prevent problems with the development like before Minetest Game is maintained by only seven people (sfan5, nore, PilzAdam, ShadowNinja, paramat, sofar, rubenwardy).

Maintainer rules

• Pulls are never merged with 'git merge', merge them with 'git am' (like in minetest)
• Fixes can be pushed by every maintainer
• History rewrite can only be done within 10 minutes (notify the other maintainers before doing so)
• New features will only go in if 50% of present maintainers (two minimum) agree to the feature
• Heavy game changes (e.g. a workbench) don't go in if one maintainer votes against
• The previous rule also applies to new maintainers
• Official channel for development is #minetest-dev

Commit guidelines

• Commit messages begin with a capital letter and are in the present tense
• Squash similar commits before pushing
• Notify other maintainers before you push something