Contributing components

Bug fixes, prop enhancements, and new components all help Orbit serve teams building the auction marketplace. Start planning early so the scope fits your timeline.

Before you start

Component contributions usually fall into three buckets: bug fixes (from a typo to a performance or accessibility refactor), enhancements (adding or updating props to extend a component), and new patterns (a new example, component, or utility). Many contributions mix several of these.

Start a discussion with the Orbit team as early as possible to align on strategy. Once you’ve decided on the best way to solve the problem, open a feature proposal or bug report, then contribute the change with a pull request.

Changes to a component’s code often affect its documentation and the Figma UI Kit — plan to update all three together.

Update props

Updating or adding props is the most common way to make a component more flexible. Components should stay performant, accessible, and maintainable, so when changing a prop, ask how your change might:

• Stay backwards compatible.
• Increase or maintain performance.
• Improve or maintain accessibility.
• Address a real pain point for the people using the interface.
• Reduce the complexity of the source code.

How to add or update a prop

• Align on whether to add a new prop or update the types of an existing one.
• Submit or assign yourself to a feature proposal.
• Add your change to the props interface.
• Include or update the description comment.
• Update the default value where relevant.
• Add tests to cover the changes.
• Add examples to the component’s documentation.
• Commit your changes and open a pull request.

Fix a bug

Bug fixes are high-impact contributions that keep Orbit reliable. There’s a bug report open for every level of experience — if you’re just getting started, look for issues that are labeled a good first issue, not yet assigned, and haven’t been updated in two or more weeks.

• Submit or assign yourself to a bug report.
• Assess the time and difficulty of finding and fixing the problem code.
• If the fix is too complex to finish, that’s okay — document your findings in the issue, link the affected lines, update the difficulty label, and unassign yourself so the next person can pick it up.
• If you reach a solution, note it on the issue, commit your changes, and open a pull request.

Add or improve a component

When improving the look, feel, or experience of a component, prioritize accessibility, check established ARIA authoring patterns for the interaction, and consider whether a component solving too many problems should be broken into smaller, composable pieces.

A large number of props is a signal that a component is doing too much. When that happens, there’s often an opportunity to refactor it — or build a smaller component it can be composed from — so the system stays easy to maintain.