Adding targets

Please look at the adding sites page to understand the issues.

All new sites that are added to Sherlock need to have an existing (already claimed) username included in their definition. The linked Wiki page describes this in more detail. This inclusion allows us to run unit tests and prevent regression.

Contributors are required to test any new sites for both false positives and false negatives. Contributors are encouraged to run unit tests as well.

Removing targets

If there are performance problems with a site (e.g. slow to respond, unreliable uptime, …), then the site may be removed from the list. The removed-sites.md file contains sites that were included at one time in Sherlock, but had to be removed for one reason or another.

If a site has occasional performance problems, but is otherwise accurate, it may be preferable to add a test to weed out false positives rather than removing it.

Restoring targets

Likely our biggest backlog. If you can propose a functional query that complies with Adding sites that would shrink our removed sites list, that would be greatly appreciated.

Adding New Functionality

Contributors that would like to add a feature to Sherlock should open an new issue, proposing their idea. Indicate that you would like to make a Pull Request for said feature.

Creating an Issue prior to opening a PR helps with tracking, discussions, and avoids hurt feelings if for whatever reason we don’t feel that a feature is compatible with the project.

Please ensure that the content on your branch passes all tests before submitting a pull request.

Coverage and Unit Tests

Thank you for contributing to Sherlock!

Before creating a pull request with new development, please run the tests to ensure that everything is working great. It would also be a good idea to run the tests before starting development to distinguish problems between your environment and the Sherlock software.

The following is an example of the command line to run all the tests for Sherlock. This invocation hides the progress text that Sherlock normally outputs, and instead shows the verbose output of the tests.

# Assumes current working directory is respository root
$ python3 -m unittest tests.all --verbose

Unfortunately, some of the sites that Sherlock checks are not always reliable, so it is common to get response problems. Any problems in connection will show up as warnings in the tests instead of true errors.

If some sites are failing due to connection problems (site is down, in maintenance, etc) you can exclude them from tests by creating a tests/.excluded_sites file with a list of sites to ignore (one site name per line).

Coverage for new features

Contributors that add new features are encouraged make an attempt at creating unit tests for them, as well. Not all contributions are suitable for unit tests, but when it’s doable, it helps prevent regression.