How to contribute
Open Mercato is a community-driven organization. Whether you are an AI enthusiast, a security expert, or a frontend wizard, your contributions help eliminate "commodity coding" for everyone.
Why Contribute?
We are building a future where developers focus on solving unique business problems while the framework handles the "boring" infrastructure.
Influence the Standard
Help shape the AGENTS.MD protocols that define how AI interacts with enterprise code.
Showcase Your Expertise
High-quality modules contribute to your professional standing and can lead to becoming a certified Implementation Partner.
Built to Last
Backed by Catch The Tornado, we are committed to a long-term, stable roadmap.
Your First 15 Minutes
Before you write code, get the environment running to see the "Modular Monolith" in action.
Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/open-mercato/open-mercato.git
cd open-mercato
Install dependencies (Yarn 4+)
yarn install
Configure environment
cp apps/mercato/.env.example apps/mercato/.env
# edit apps/mercato/.env
Generate + initialize + run
yarn generate
yarn initialize # or: yarn reinstall
yarn dev
We categorize contributions into four high-impact streams
Core Framework (The Engine)
Improving the DI container (Awilix), refining the Overlay System, or optimizing the MikroORM integration.
Community Modules
Building new "Vertical" modules like Logistics, Healthcare Patient Portal, or Advanced Billing.
AI Engineering (Prompt Libraries)
Open Mercato is AI-native. We need contributors to refine our System Prompts for Claude, Cursor, and Copilot to ensure they generate "Open-Closed" compliant code.
Security & Compliance
Hardening our Encrypted Vault and expanding our field-level encryption strategies (KMS/HashiCorp Vault).
The "AI-Native" Contribution Workflow
We encourage using AI (Claude, Cursor, Copilot) to help write your contributions, provided you follow our architectural guardrails:
Reference AGENTS.MD
Always feed our architecture rules to your AI before generating code.
Playwright Testing
Every new feature must include E2E tests to prevent regressions.
Contribution Guidelines
To maintain enterprise-grade quality, we follow a strict PR process:
Branching
Use feat/ for new features, fix/ for bug fixes, and docs/ for documentation updates.
Intellectual Honesty
If you are introducing a breaking change, highlight it clearly. We prefer modularity over "clever" hacks.
Documentation
Every new module or core change must include an update to its respective AGENTS.MD file so the AI community can use it immediately.
MIT License
Open Mercato is and will remain Open Source under the MIT License. You own the code you write, and the community benefits from the foundation we build together.