Contributing guidelines
A well-maintained README provides an overview of your project’s current state, while a CONTRIBUTING guide encourages user/developer involvement. Together, these documents help maintain project clarity and make it easier to manage contributions.
Setting up a CONTRIBUTING guide
There are no strict guidelines for a contributing guide and the content will depend on the project size, the number of collaborators, and your particular workflow. Consider including:
- Introduction: Welcome the contributors and express appreciation for community contributions.
- Add a code of conduct: This helps to maintain a respectful and inclusive environment.
- How to contribute: Explain precise contribution guidelines
- Issue tracking: Explain how to report issues (bugs, feature requests, etc.).
- Pull requests: Detail the process for submitting pull requests. This includes instructions on forking the repository, creating a branch, making changes, and the follow-up steps for a successful pull request.
- Code review process: Describe how contributions will be reviewed and integrated.
- Community and communication: List the channels through which contributors can communicate and set their expectations regarding the responsiveness and availability of project maintainers.
- Style guide and coding standards: Providing a (separate) coding style guide or documenting coding standards would be best practice. This way contributors would ensure consistency across the codebase.
- Legal implications: Inform contributors about the licensing under which their contributions will be used and any intellectual property considerations they should be aware of.