Expand contributor documentation

- Move from CONTRIBUTING.md to a subdirectory in docs, so
  we can expand and add more documentation.
- Move from markdown to reStructuredTest
- Add a direct blurb in the JupyterHub docs index page on
  how contribution.
- More prominent link to the Code of Conduct
- Add section on getting in touch with the JupyterHub community

docs/source/contributing/community.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
+.. _contributing/community:
+
+================================
+Community communication channels
+================================
+
+We use `Gitter <https://gitter.im>`_ for online, real-time text chat. The
+primary channel for JupyterHub is `jupyterhub/jupyterhub <https://gitter.im/jupyterhub/jupyterhub>`_.
+Remember that our community is distributed across the world in various
+timezones, so be patient if you do not get an answer immediately!
+
+GitHub issues are used for most long-form project discussions, bug reports
+and feature requests. Issues related to a specific authenticator or
+spawner should be directed to the appropriate repository for the
+authenticator or spawner. If you are using a specific JupyterHub
+distribution (such as `Zero to JupyterHub on Kubernetes <http://github.com/jupyterhub/zero-to-jupyterhub-k8s>`_
+or `The Littlest JupyterHub <http://github.com/jupyterhub/the-littlest-jupyterhub/>`_),
+you should open issues directly in their repository. If you can not
+find a repository to open your issue in, do not worry! Create it in the `main
+JupyterHub repository <https://github.com/jupyterhub/jupyterhub/>`_ and our
+community will help you figure it out.
+
+A `mailing list <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/jupyter>`_ for all
+of Project Jupyter exists, along with one for `teaching with Jupyter
+<https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/jupyter-education>`_. 

docs/source/contributing/docs.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
+.. _contributing/docs:
+
+==========================
+Contributing Documentation
+==========================
+
+Documentation is often more important than code. This page helps
+you get set up on how to contribute documentation to JupyterHub.
+
+Building documentation locally
+==============================
+
+
+We use `sphinx <http://sphinx-doc.org>`_ to build our documentation. It takes
+our documentation source files (written in `markdown
+<https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/>`_ or `reStructuredText
+<http://www.sphinx-doc.org/en/master/usage/restructuredtext/basics.html>`_ &
+stored under the ``docs/source`` directory) and converts it into various
+formats for people to read. To make sure the documentation you write or
+change renders correctly, it is good practice to test it locally.
+
+#. Make sure you have successfuly completed :ref:`contributing/setup`.
+
+#. Install the packages required to build the docs.
+
+   .. code-block:: bash
+
+      pip install -r docs/requirements.txt
+
+#. Build the html version of the docs. This is the most commonly used
+   output format, so verifying it renders as you should is usually good
+   enough.
+
+   .. code-block:: bash
+
+      cd docs
+      make html
+
+   This step will display any syntax or formatting errors in the documentation,
+   along with the filename / line number in which they occurred. Fix them,
+   and re-run the ``make html`` command to re-render the documentation.
+
+#. View the rendered documentation by opening ``build/html/index.html`` in 
+   a web browser. 
+
+   .. tip::
+
+      On macOS, you can open a file from the terminal with ``open <path-to-file>``.
+      On Linux, you can do the same with ``xdg-open <path-to-file>``.

docs/source/contributing/setup.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,178 @@
+.. _contributing/setup:
+
+================================
+Setting up a development install
+================================
+
+System requirements
+===================
+
+JupyterHub can only run on MacOS or Linux operating systems. If you are
+using Windows, we recommend using `VirtualBox <https://virtualbox.org>`_ 
+or a similar system to run `Ubuntu Linux <https://ubuntu.com>`_ for
+development.
+
+Install Python
+--------------
+
+JupyterHub is written in the `Python <https://python.org>`_ programming language, and
+requires you have at least version 3.5 installed locally. If you haven’t
+installed Python before, the recommended way to install it is to use
+`miniconda <https://conda.io/miniconda.html>`_. Remember to get the ‘Python 3’ version, 
+and **not** the ‘Python 2’ version!
+
+Install nodejs
+--------------
+
+``configurable-http-proxy``, the default proxy implementation for
+JupyterHub, is written in Javascript to run on `NodeJS
+<https://nodejs.org/en/>`_. If you have not installed nodejs before, we
+recommend installing it in the ``miniconda`` environment you set up for
+Python. You can do so with ``conda install nodejs``.
+
+Install git
+-----------
+
+JupyterHub uses `git <https://git-scm.com>`_ & `GitHub <https://github.com>`_
+for development & collaboration. You need to `install git
+<https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Getting-Started-Installing-Git>`_ to work on
+JupyterHub. We also recommend getting a free account on GitHub.com.
+
+Setting up a development install
+================================
+
+When developing JupyterHub, you need to make changes to the code & see
+their effects quickly. You need to do a developer install to make that
+happen.
+
+1. Clone the `JupyterHub git repository <https://github.com/jupyterhub/jupyterhub>`_ 
+   to your computer.
+
+   .. code:: bash
+
+      git clone https://github.com/jupyterhub/jupyterhub
+      cd jupyterhub
+
+2. Make sure the ``python`` you installed and the ``npm`` you installed
+   are available to you on the command line.
+
+   .. code:: bash
+
+      python -V
+
+   This should return a version number greater than or equal to 3.5.
+
+   .. code:: bash
+
+      npm -v
+
+   This should return a version number greater than or equal to 5.0.
+
+3. Install ``configurable-http-proxy``. This is required to run
+   JupyterHub.
+
+   .. code:: bash
+
+      npm install -g configurable-http-proxy
+
+   If you get an error that says ``Error: EACCES: permission denied``,
+   you might need to prefix the command with ``sudo``. If you do not
+   have access to sudo, you may instead run the following commands:
+
+   .. code:: bash
+
+      npm install configurable-http-proxy
+      export PATH=$PATH:$(pwd)/node_modules/.bin
+
+   The second line needs to be run every time you open a new terminal.
+
+4. Install the python packages required for JupyterHub development.
+
+   .. code:: bash
+
+      pip3 install -r dev-requirements.txt
+      pip3 install -r requirements.txt
+
+5. Install the development version of JupyterHub. This lets you edit
+   JupyterHub code in a text editor & restart the JupyterHub process to
+   see your code changes immediately.
+
+   .. code:: bash
+
+      pip3 install --editable .
+
+6. You are now ready to start JupyterHub!
+
+   .. code:: bash
+
+      jupyterhub
+
+7. You can access JupyterHub from your browser at
+   ``http://localhost:8000`` now.
+
+Happy developing!
+
+Using DummyAuthenticator & SimpleSpawner
+========================================
+
+To simplify testing of JupyterHub, it’s helpful to use
+`DummyAuthenticator <https://github.com/jupyterhub/dummyauthenticator>`_ 
+instead of the default JupyterHub authenticator and
+`SimpleSpawner <https://github.com/jupyterhub/simplespawner>`_ 
+instead of the default spawner.
+
+There is a sample configuration file that does this in
+``testing/jupyterhub_config.py``. To launch jupyterhub with this
+configuration:
+
+.. code:: bash
+
+   pip install jupyterhub-simplespawner jupyterhub-dummyauthenticator
+   jupyterhub -f testing/jupyterhub_config.py
+
+The default JupyterHub `authenticator
+<https://jupyterhub.readthedocs.io/en/stable/reference/authenticators.html#the-default-pam-authenticator>`_
+& `spawner
+<https://jupyterhub.readthedocs.io/en/stable/api/spawner.html#localprocessspawner>`_
+require your system to have user accounts for each user you want to log in to
+JupyterHub as.
+
+DummyAuthenticator allows you to log in with any username & password,
+while SimpleSpawner allows you to start servers without having to
+create a unix user for each JupyterHub user. Together, these make it
+much easier to test JupyterHub.
+
+Tip: If you are working on parts of JupyterHub that are common to all
+authenticators & spawners, we recommend using both DummyAuthenticator &
+SimpleSpawner. If you are working on just authenticator related parts,
+use only SimpleSpawner. Similarly, if you are working on just spawner
+related parts, use only DummyAuthenticator.
+
+Troubleshooting
+===============
+
+This section lists common ways setting up your development environment may
+fail, and how to fix them. Please add to the list if you encounter yet
+another way it can fail!
+
+``lessc`` not found
+-------------------
+
+If the ``pip3 install --editable .`` command fails and complains about
+``lessc`` being unavailable, you may need to explicitly install some
+additional JavaScript dependencies:
+
+.. code:: bash
+
+   npm install
+
+This will fetch client-side JavaScript dependencies necessary to compile
+CSS.
+
+You may also need to manually update JavaScript and CSS after some
+development updates, with:
+
+.. code:: bash
+
+   python3 setup.py js    # fetch updated client-side js
+   python3 setup.py css   # recompile CSS from LESS sources

docs/source/contributing/tests.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,78 @@
+.. _contributing/tests:
+
+==================
+Testing JupyterHub
+==================
+
+Unit test help validate that JupyterHub works the way we think it does,
+and continues to do so when changes occur. They also help communicate
+precisely what we expect our code to do. 
+
+JupyterHub uses `pytest <https://pytest.org>`_ for all our tests. You
+can find them under ``jupyterhub/tests`` directory in the git repository.
+
+Running the tests
+==================
+
+#. Make sure you have completed :ref:`contributing/setup`. You should be able
+   to start ``jupyterhub`` from the commandline & access it from your
+   web browser. This ensures that the dev environment is properly set
+   up for tests to run.
+
+#. You can run all tests in JupyterHub 
+
+   .. code-block:: bash
+
+      pytest --async-test-timeout 15 -v jupyterhub/tests
+
+   This should display progress as it runs all the tests, printing
+   information about any test failures as they occur.
+
+   The ``--async-test-timeout`` parameter is used by `pytest-tornado
+   <https://github.com/eugeniy/pytest-tornado#markers>`_ to set the
+   asynchronous test timeout to 15 seconds rather than the default 5,
+   since some of our tests take longer than 5s to execute.
+
+#. You can also run tests in just a specific file:
+
+   .. code-block:: bash
+
+      pytest --async-test-timeout 15 -v jupyterhub/tests/<test-file-name>
+
+#. To run a specific test only, you can do:
+
+   .. code-block:: bash
+
+      pytest --async-test-timeout 15 -v jupyterhub/tests/<test-file-name>::<test-name>
+
+   This runs the test with function name ``<test-name>`` defined in
+   ``<test-file-name>``. This is very useful when you are iteratively
+   developing a single test.
+
+   For example, to run the test ``test_shutdown`` in the file ``test_api.py``,
+   you would run:
+
+   .. code-block:: bash
+      
+      pytest -v jupyterhub/tests/test_api.py::test_shutdown
+
+
+Troubleshooting Test Failures
+=============================
+
+All the tests are failing
+-------------------------
+
+Make sure you have completed all the steps in :ref:`contributing/setup` sucessfully, and
+can launch ``jupyterhub`` from the terminal.
+
+Tests are timing out
+--------------------
+
+The ``--async-test-timeout`` parameter to ``pytest`` is used by
+`pytest-tornado <https://github.com/eugeniy/pytest-tornado#markers>`_ to set
+the asynchronous test timeout to a higher value than the default of 5s,
+since some of our tests take longer than 5s to execute. If the tests
+are still timing out, try increasing that value even more. You can
+also set an environment variable ``ASYNC_TEST_TIMEOUT`` instead of
+passing ``--async-test-timeout`` to each invocation of pytest.

docs/source/index.rst

@@ -68,7 +68,28 @@ Contents
 * :doc:`reference/config-proxy`
 * :doc:`reference/config-sudo`
 
-**API Reference**
+Contributing
+------------
+
+We want you to contribute to JupyterHub in ways that are most exciting
+& useful to you. We value documentation, testing, bug reporting & code equally,
+and are glad to have your contributions in whatever form you wish :)
+
+Our `Code of Conduct <https://github.com/jupyter/governance/blob/master/conduct/code_of_conduct.md>`_
+(`reporting guidelines <https://github.com/jupyter/governance/blob/master/conduct/reporting_online.md>`_)
+helps keep our community welcoming to as many people as possible.
+
+.. toctree::
+   :maxdepth: 1
+
+   contributing/community
+   contributing/setup
+   contributing/docs
+   contributing/tests
+
+
+API Reference
+-------------
 
 * :doc:`api/index`