Maintainer guide
How to write a CONTRIBUTING.md developers will actually use
A contribution guide succeeds when it turns a willing newcomer into a prepared collaborator without making them guess about setup, scope, review, or safety.
Write for the first successful local run
The most important part of a contributor guide is the path from clone to a working baseline. State the supported runtime and package manager, show the exact installation and start commands, identify the default local URL, and explain any safe optional configuration. A newcomer should not have to infer which command starts the project or whether a failure is expected.
Keep server-only credentials out of examples. If an integration is optional, say what works without it and where to place locally supplied values. A good guide distinguishes public configuration from secrets rather than asking contributors to copy a production environment.
- Prerequisites and supported runtime versions.
- Clone, install, and local-start commands that were recently verified.
- A safe explanation of optional environment variables and never-commit rules.
Explain how work is selected and scoped
Tell contributors where issues live, what labels mean, and how to ask before starting ambiguous work. A useful good-first-issue definition describes a bounded outcome, relevant files, acceptance criteria, and excluded work. It does not promise mentoring, payment, or merge approval.
Document the project principles that should guide decisions when no issue exists. For example, WelcomeScore keeps repository guidance evidence-bound, preserves explicit user actions, and avoids exposing secrets or adding surprising automation. Principles make review comments more predictable than undocumented preferences.
Make quality checks proportionate and explicit
List the commands a contributor should run before a pull request, and explain any known non-blocking warnings so people do not spend time chasing unrelated history. Keep the expected checks near the pull-request instructions rather than scattering them across several documents.
Ask contributors to test the path they changed, including an invalid-input or safe-failure case when applicable. For user interfaces, a narrow mobile check and keyboard check often catch practical issues that a type checker cannot.
Define review, conduct, and security boundaries
Link to the code of conduct, security policy, support route, and license. Explain that security concerns belong in a private reporting channel, not in a public issue. Explain that public support threads must not contain credentials, private data, or sensitive operational details.
A guide is also an expectation-setting tool. Describe the review path, ask contributors to keep changes focused, and make clear that maintainers may request revision, defer a proposal, or decline work that conflicts with current scope or safety boundaries.
About this guide
Written by ETHIOR Editorial for contributors and maintainers. This guide explains practical product and repository practices; it is not legal, security, employment, or financial advice. Review the project’s How It Works, Privacy Policy, and Terms & Conditions for product boundaries.
Put the ideas into practice
Run a fresh public GitHub audit and use the visible contributor signals as a starting point—not as a certification of project quality or safety.
Check a repository