Maintain Project Contributing

Maintain Project Contributing

Purpose

Keep CONTRIBUTING.md focused on human contributor setup, workflow, verification, review, communication, and contribution terms while all four canonical repository documents move together.

Commands

The only documentation commands are:

just docs-check
just docs-apply

Both always process README, CONTRIBUTING, AGENTS, and ROADMAP. There are no per-file recipes and no supported direct script commands.

Managed Contract

• assets/document.contract.json fixes the canonical structure and aliases.
• assets/CONTRIBUTING.template.md supplies deterministic bootstrap content.
• Repositories cannot customize headings, order, aliases, or fix policy.
• Healthy existing prose and allowed additional sections remain preserved.

CONTRIBUTING Ownership

CONTRIBUTING owns who the guide serves, prerequisites, choosing work, making changes, asking for review, runtime setup, development expectations, pull request expectations, communication, and contribution terms. Product overview belongs in README, durable agent policy in AGENTS, and planning in ROADMAP.

Placeholder checks ignore fenced examples, including generic DCO sign-off examples. They apply only to prose that matches managed scaffold language.

Deterministic Workflow

Use just docs-check for a no-write audit and just docs-apply for the atomic four-document normalization transaction. Apply must be byte-idempotent.

Guardrails

• Never maintain CONTRIBUTING separately from the full document suite.
• Never invent environment variables, services, commands, branch policy, review policy, or legal terms.
• Never expose project-local schema customization.
• Never commit, push, or open a pull request as part of documentation upkeep.

References

• assets/document.contract.json
• assets/CONTRIBUTING.template.md