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Contributing

Thank you for your interest in contributing to NOVA!

Before you start

Read the Copilot & Contributor Instructions — they define the strict security, legal, and architectural rules all contributions must follow.

Key principles:

  • NOVA is defensive only — no exploitation features will be accepted
  • All user input must be validated and sanitised
  • No shell string interpolation — always use structured exec.Command argument slices
  • No global mutable state
  • No circular imports

Development setup

git clone https://github.com/Zayan-Mohamed/nova.git
cd nova

# Install dependencies
go mod download

# Build
go build -o nova .

# Run tests
go test ./...

# Run linter (requires golangci-lint v2+)
golangci-lint run --timeout=5m

Install golangci-lint v2

# Homebrew (Linux/macOS)
brew install golangci-lint

# Manual install
curl -sSfL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/golangci/golangci-lint/master/install.sh \
  | sh -s -- -b $(go env GOPATH)/bin v2.10.1

Pull request checklist

  • [ ] go build ./... passes
  • [ ] go vet ./... passes
  • [ ] golangci-lint run --timeout=5m passes with 0 issues
  • [ ] No new shell string interpolation
  • [ ] All external input sanitised before use or display
  • [ ] New features do not add exploitation capabilities
  • [ ] Tests added for any new logic in internal/

What we accept

✅ Bug fixes
✅ Performance improvements
✅ New defensive analysis rules
✅ macOS WiFi support (via airport command)
✅ Documentation improvements
✅ UI/UX enhancements
✅ Additional output formats (JSON, CSV export)

What we will not accept

❌ Password brute-forcing
❌ Exploit modules
❌ Packet injection / deauth attacks
❌ Stealth scanning modes
❌ Credential harvesting
❌ Any feature designed to attack rather than assess

Reporting bugs

Open an issue using the Bug Report template.

Suggesting features

Open an issue using the Feature Request template.