docs(readme): open the project to external contributions

Merged
LU
3mo ago
+13-5

The problem

The Contributing section opened with:

Lucky is a solo personal project — actively developed and deployed to production, but not seeking external contributors.

and then immediately listed five steps for how to contribute. Anyone who read the first sentence never reached the second.

It was also already false. Adolanium and Re-Gouveia-QA have open PRs right now, and CONTRIBUTING.md has been welcoming the whole time — the README was the only thing in the repo turning people away.

The change

Rewritten to say contributions are welcome and to answer what a first-time contributor actually needs:

  • Where to start — a concrete link, not "look around"
  • A repro case counts — lowers the bar below "ship a feature"
  • Ask before building — so nobody burns a weekend on something that will not merge

Plus honest expectations: review latency varies, a red CI check is information rather than rejection, and the bot reviewers (CodeRabbit, cubic, Sonar) are suggestions to weigh rather than orders. That last one matters — a newcomer seeing three bots pile onto their first PR could easily read it as the maintainer being hostile.

Kept the one promise worth making: every PR gets a real answer, and a rejection comes with reasoning rather than silence.

One thing that needs you

I pointed at ready-for-human (3 open) rather than good first issue or help wanted, because those two labels exist but have zero open issues:

$ gh issue list --label "good first issue" --state open   # empty
$ gh issue list --label "help wanted" --state open        # empty

Sending a newcomer to an empty list is worse than sending them nowhere. Labelling a handful of genuinely self-contained issues as good first issue is probably the highest-leverage next step for attracting contributors, and it needs your judgement on which ones qualify.

Summary by cubic

Opened the project to external contributions by rewriting the README Contributing section. Adds a clear starting path via ready-for-human issues, treats repros as valid contributions, asks contributors to check ideas before building, and clarifies PR steps plus CI/bot feedback expectations.

Summary by CodeRabbit

  • Documentation
    • Expanded the contribution guide with clearer guidance on finding issues, preparing pull requests, and interpreting CI feedback.
    • Added details about the collaborative review process and expected response times.
    • Added references to the project’s contribution guidelines.