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The goal of the ACME E3SM Code Development Process is to achieve high developer productivity towards the improvement of the ACME earth system modelE3SM. A degree of formality is needed because of the large size of the ACME E3SM team, the geographic distribution of the team, and large scope of the ACME project, particularly when including collaborations.

The process is meant to promote the quality of the ACME E3SM model along many dimensions: high-quality science, verified implementations, high-performing implementations, high-quality code, portability to DOE computer architectures, and maintainability/extensibility by those other then the original developersE3SM. The process intends to give individuals and small teams the ability to independently develop new features and algorithms, yet with a clear path to incorporation into the ACME modelE3SM model. The expectation is that collaborators (as well as E3SM developer team members) achieve a level of expertise in code practice that can be sustained and maintained across the team without requiring intervention. 

Steps Main steps of the Development ProcessE3SM code development process:

1. Code development should begin from the head of the master branch or most recent release maint branch of ACME E3SM from the github repository, and take place on a feature branch
2. Code should be of high enough quality to be readable, modifiable, and maintainable by others
3. New code in an existing routine should follow the style of the surrounding code.
4. Brand new code should follow the recommended ACME coding standards (TBD).
5. For eventual inclusion in the ACME model, the development should document . 
6. Code development should follow E3SM standards for using git, e.g. preparing a separate commit for each stand-alone contribution along with a well-formed commit message.
7. Developers must run the E3SM developer test suite to verify that their development has not unintentionally changed the code behavior, and all new development must be accompanied by tests to protect the new feature against future developments.
8. See Speculative Long-term Development if you will be working for a while on your changes.
9. For eventual inclusion of a new feature or algorithm into the E3SM Model, documentation of the main steps of the ACME E3SM Code Review process should be created:
   1. A design document (or paper) detailing the equations/algorithms that are being implemented
   2. Verification evidence that supports that the implementation is correct
   3. One or more tests added to the ACME testing system to protect the new feature against future developments
   4. Performance analysis and data showing the expected and measured performance impact of the new feature
   5. Validation evidence that the feature matches observational data
10. Code development should be incorporated into, or rebased to, the ACME code base at least every few months, and developers must verify that the ACME tests still pass on this development branch (ACME has no resources to reconcile code that has been on diverging development paths).
11. Code development should follow ACME standards:
    1. Standard commit messages: Commit message template
    2. Brief commit history: Each commit should be a stand-alone self describing entity. Ideally each commit should be testable as well.

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