If you are interested in contributing to the rapidly growing set of AREDN |trade| documentation you can easily do so on GitHub. To contribute to the AREDN |trade| project you first must create your own GitHub account. This is free and easy to do by following these steps:
1. Open your web browser and navigate to the `GitHub URL <https://github.com>`_.
2. Click the ``Sign Up`` button and enter a username, email, and password. We suggest using your callsign as the username.
3. On the GitHub website, click the ``Sign In`` button and enter your username or email followed by your GitHub password.
4. Navigate on GitHub to the AREDN |trade| documentation repository: https://github.com/aredn/documentation.
5. Click the ``Fork`` button at the upper right corner of the page. After this process completes, you will have your own copy of the AREDN |trade| documentation files on your GitHub account.
6. Go to your local computer and clone your fork of the AREDN |trade| documentation: ``git clone https://github.com/YOUR-GITHUB-ID/documentation``
7. Navigate on your local computer to the folder where your cloned copy of the repository is located: ``cd documentation`` This directory contains your local copy of the AREDN |trade| documentation, and all of your document editing should be done while you are in this directory or its subdirectories.
The workflow for contributing documentation is described in the file titled `How to Use GitHub for AREDN <https://github.com/aredn/documentation/blob/master/How%20to%20Use%20GitHub%20for%20AREDN.md>`_, a copy of which you will have in your new local repository. Refer to that document for additional information about contributing AREDN |trade| documentation.
Your local editing branch name can be anything that makes sense to you as you add topics to the documentation. AREDN |trade| documentation is written using the `reStructuredText <https://docutils.sourceforge.io/docs/ref/rst/restructuredtext.html>`_ markup language and your text is saved in "rst" files. Before committing your changes, be sure to test your rst files locally using `Sphinx <https://www.sphinx-doc.org/en/master/usage/quickstart.html>`_ to ensure they will render correctly.
After you create a Pull Request on GitHub, the AREDN |trade| team will review your changes. Once your documentation contributions are committed to the AREDN |trade| GitHub repository, a webhook automatically updates and builds the latest docs for viewing and exporting on ReadTheDocs.org
