Fix the thing you can reproduce
Small, well-proven changes are welcome: parser fixes, command output fixes, protocol edge cases, docs corrections, and test coverage that catches real behavior.
Community
Contributing to Ze
Ze takes code, documentation, bug reports, and real-world interop reports. The repositories are public, the issue tracker is public, and development happens in the open.
Bring a trace, lab, or transcript
Interop reports, QEMU runs, failing .ci transcripts, and browser captures are useful because they show exactly what broke and what should be checked next.
Handle security privately
If an unauthenticated peer can trigger it, or if it can escalate access, use the security policy instead of a public issue.
The contribution contract
Hard requirement
No signed CLA, no merge.
Contributions require signing off commits with git commit -s, which signifies agreement to Ze's Contributor License Agreement.
You keep your copyright. What you grant is a broad, non-exclusive license for the Maintainer to use your contribution, including the right to relicense it, alone or combined with the rest of the project, under different license terms.
How Ze is funded
Stewardship
Backed work, public project
Ze is currently developed by Thomas Mangin, with his time on the project supported by Exa Networks. There is no subscription tier, no paid support contract, and no separate commercial entity behind it today.
Exa Networks has been backing this work since 2009, when it started with ExaBGP, Ze's predecessor.
Where to start
Issues
Browse or file a bug
Use this for reproducible problems, missing docs, and clear feature gaps.
Repository
GitHub is the source repository
Development moved off Codeberg in July 2026. Clone, issues and pull requests all live on GitHub.
Discussion
Ask before guessing
There is no formal good-first-issue program yet. Ask where help is most useful right now.