Guidelines for Contributors

This page explains what and how to contribute to this Practical Spiking Neural Networks book. It also sets the writing/programming standards, as well as, how your contributions will be acknowledged and the criteria for it; note that these details are subject to change.

This open-source book is primarily written in Markdown using Myst. The light-weight code examples are written in Python using NumPy.

1What to contribute?¶

As of this writing (2025), this Practical SNN book (or just the “SNN book” informally) is in a nascent stage; a lot of contents are yet to be added -- from foudational theories to neuromorphic hardware deployments. Therefore, if you have some expertise on certain chapters/sections of this book and wish to write about it, or propose new sections, get in touch with us in the #snnbook channel on Open Neuromorphic Discord. We invite and appreciate all contributions to perfect this book, no matter their scale!

1.1Broad areas to contribute:¶

• Finding and reporting typos -- as GitHub issues (repository will be made public later)
• Reviewing the existing content and reporting any conceptual mistakes on the ONM Discord #snnbook.
  • If validated there, a GitHub issue will be created to amend the content
• Fixing existing GitHub issues on this repository (will be made public later)
  • Mention the issue number your are interested on Discord #snnbook and we will officially assign that issue to you
• Adding new chapters, sections, or light-weight code/programs (in Python/NumPy)
• Suggesting (classical) research papers providing in-depth coverage of certain chapters/topics that we should include and refer the readers to

NOTE: Please check the following Sec. 4 Call for planned contributions for more concrete opportunities to contribute to this book!

2How to contribute?¶

Interested to contribute via writing or reviewing? Thank you! Please get in touch with us (in #snnbook) to access the GitHub repository, and then read the following instructions to quickly set up your development environment and push your first commit!

2.1Only two pedantic asks!¶

Please configure your favourite text editor (where you plan to add your edits to this book) such that the individual lines (including code snippets) are 80 characters long; most of the editors come with the auto-wrap functionality, you just need to configure it to 80 characters long.

For coding/programming contributions, we follow Python’s PEP 8 formatting. If you are aware of it, that’s great, otherwise, we can help you learn it during the review phase of your edits.

2.2Next steps?¶

We suggest you begin with installing a python3 environment and activating it before executing the following steps.

• Clone the repository:
  git clone <repository URL>
  
  

• Install the required libraries:
  pip install -r requirements.txt
  
  

• Creating a branch (pertaining to a GitHub issue or new edits):
  git branch <branch-name>
git checkout <branch-name>
  
  

• Set your local branch to track its own remote:
  git push --set-upstream origin <branch-name>
  
  

• Make small edits, and compile the book by:
  jupyter book start
  from within your python environment, and open
  http://localhost:3000/
  on your browser to see how it looks.
  
  

• Once you have made your changes, push your commits:
  git push
  You will see that these will be pushed to your remote branch <branch-name> (not main).
  
  

• Keep developing your branch as needed, and keep pushing your commits to the remote.
  
  

• Once all the necessary changes have been made, and your branch to ready to be merged to main, fetch main and rebase against it (make sure your working directory is clean, i.e., all your files are committed and pushed to remote <branch-name>); while rebasing, resolve the merge conflicts if any:
  git fetch origin main
git rebase origin/main
  
  

• Once you have resolved all the merge conflicts, push your local branch:
  git push origin <branch-name>
  
  

• File a pull request upon successful push, and choose a reviewer for your edits; consult in the #snnbook channel for the same!
  
  

• Once you’ve addressed all the review comments and received approval from your reviewer(s), merge your branch to main (assuming no conflicts exist).

NOTE: Unless already discussed with repository maintainers/reviewer(s) please do not add massive changes to review.

3Getting acknowledged!¶

Your contributions to the SNN book will be acknowledged in three planned ways:

• Any contribution, e.g., code, fixing typos, adding contents, basically any Git commit will be acknowledged on the GitHub repository and for perpetuity in the git log.

• Your organized review of the chapters will be acknowledged in the Reviewed By section of those particular chapters; it will be viewable on this website, although, the authorship will not be shared.

• Significant contributions of large chunks of work, e.g., adding an important section(s) in a chapter, writing a chapter, etc., will be acknowledged as sharing the authorship of that particular chapter (which will be citable) subject to the approval of the existing authors of that chapter and the editors. For contributions in this direction, it is advisable to first get in touch with this SNN book’s editors.

NOTE: Any other modes of contributions, e.g., planning this book, advising/ideas on new chapters, joining and contributing to meetings/discussions will also be acknowledged (on this website) subject to the editors approval. Also, all these means of acknowledgements are subject to change if this SNN book’s editors deem necessary.

4Call for planned contributions¶

Following are the chapters/sections where we call for contributions. Please get in touch with the editors of this SNN book in the #snnbook channel on Open Neuromorphic Discord to plan well, before making any Git activity.