Revise contribution guidelines

CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -1,76 +1,116 @@
 # How to contribute to a Stellar project
 
-Your contributions to the [Stellar network](https://www.stellar.org/) will help improve the world’s
-financial infrastructure, faster.
+Your contributions to the [Stellar network](https://www.stellar.org/) will help
+improve the world’s financial infrastructure.
 
-We want to make it as easy as possible to contribute changes that help the Stellar network grow and
-thrive. There are a few guidelines that we ask contributors to follow so that we can merge your
-changes quickly.
+We want to make it as easy as possible to contribute to Stellar in ways that
+make the network grow and thrive. There are a few guidelines that we ask
+contributors to follow so that we all work effectively together.
 
-## Getting Started
-
-* Make sure you have a [GitHub account](https://github.com/signup/free).
-* Create a GitHub issue for your contribution, assuming one does not already exist.
-  * Clearly describe the issue including steps to reproduce if it is a bug.
-* Fork the repository on GitHub.
-
-### Minor Changes
-
-#### Documentation
-
-For small changes to comments and documentation, it is not
-always necessary to create a new GitHub issue. In this case, it is
-appropriate to start the first line of a commit with 'doc' instead of
-an issue number.
-
-## Finding things to work on
-
-The first place to start is always looking over the current GitHub issues for the project you are
-interested in contributing to. Issues marked with [help wanted][help-wanted] or are usually pretty
-self-contained and a good place to get started.
-
-The Stellar Development Foundation also uses these same GitHub issues to keep track of what we are
-working on.
-
-Before starting work on an issue it can be a good idea to communicate on the issue, discussing
-what the solution might look like, and if it would make sense to contribute to it.
-
-Of course, feel free to create a new issue if you think something needs to be added or fixed.
+> [!TIP]
+> The Stellar network is open, decentralized, and programmable. Many ideas you
+> may have can be built without changes to the projects hosted here. Want to
+> contribute to Stellar? Build on Stellar! And share your feedback in the forums
+> listed below.
 
+To contribute to the work of maintaining the projects hosted here, the
+biggest-impact contributions are participating in discussions, sharing new
+ideas, reporting bugs, and sharing experience reports.
 
-## Making Changes
-
-* Create a feature branch from where you want to base your work.
-  * This is usually the main (or master) branch.
-  * Please avoid working directly on the `main` (or `master`) branch.
-* Make sure you have added the necessary tests for your changes and make sure all tests pass.
-
-## Submitting Changes
-
-* All content, comments, pull requests and other contributions must comply with the
-  [Stellar Code of Conduct][coc].
-* Push your changes to a topic branch in your fork of the repository.
-* Submit a pull request to the repository in the Stellar
-  organization.
-  * Include a descriptive [commit message][commit-msg].
-  * Changes contributed via pull request should focus on a single issue at a time.
-  * Rebase your local changes against the `main` branch. Resolve any conflicts that arise.
-
-
-At this point you're waiting on us. We like to at least comment on pull requests within three
-business days (typically, one business day). We may suggest some changes, improvements or
-alternatives.
-
-# Additional Resources
-
-* [Explore our APIs](https://developers.stellar.org/docs)
-* [Stellar Developer Discord](https://discord.com/invite/stellardev)
-
-This document is inspired by:
+## Getting Started
 
-* https://github.com/puppetlabs/puppet/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md
-* https://github.com/thoughtbot/factory_girl_rails/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md
-* https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md
+- Make sure you have a [GitHub account](https://github.com/signup/free)
+- Read the [Stellar Code of Conduct][coc], as all content, comments, pull
+  requests and other contributions must comply with it
+- Create discussions at https://github.com/orgs/stellar/discussions with
+  problems and new ideas, or participate in existing discussions
+- Create proposals at https://github.com/stellar/stellar-protocol after sharing
+  ideas in a discussion first
+- Create GitHub issues for bugs and feature requests that target specific
+  projects
+
+## Reporting Bugs and Requesting Features
+
+First search for an existing issue and join a relevant discussion if an existing
+issue is present.
+
+After confirming an issue does not already exist, create a GitHub issue with:
+
+- The concrete problem that needs solving.
+- For bugs, include a minimal reproducer with the expected and actual behavior.
+- Relevant alternatives, if any, and their tradeoffs.
+- Verify everything reported before submitting. Do not submit speculative
+  findings or generated lists of possible issues.
+
+## Pull Requests
+
+Projects hosted here only accept pull requests for issues with the `help wanted`
+label or if they indicate otherwise in their own contributing guidelines.
+Unsolicited pull requests will be closed without an explanation and reported as
+spam.
+
+Making changes requires deep architectural knowledge, a good understanding of
+system constraints, and an idea about the project roadmap. Many Stellar projects
+facilitate financial transactions or are dependencies to many other projects.
+Correctness is critical and thoughtful evolution of behaviour and APIs is
+paramount. Maintainer and reviewer time is limited. External contributors often
+do not have the context required and reviewing takes the maintainers' focus away
+from high-priority work that has already been discussed in discussion forums and
+that the ecosystem is waiting on.
+
+Key things to keep in mind when creating a pull request:
+
+- Does the change narrowly address an open issue and have you been assigned?
+- Does the change comply with the [Stellar Code of Conduct][coc].
+- Link the approved issue.
+
+## AI-Assisted Contributions
+
+The use of AI tools to improve productivity and the quality of contributions is
+encouraged. AI assistance does not, however, change the responsibilities or
+standards that apply to the human contributor.
+
+Maintainers are not obligated to review contributions that do not appear to meet
+these standards and may close or reject them without performing the verification
+that is the submitter's responsibility.
+
+Before exposing other community members to AI-assisted content, the human
+submitter is responsible for:
+
+- **Reviewing and verifying all generated content**, including code, tests, code
+  comments, documentation, issues, pull-request descriptions, review feedback,
+  chat messages, forum posts, and other project or community communications.
+  Appropriate tests and checks must be performed where applicable.
+- **Ensuring the contribution is correct, relevant, and appropriate for the
+  project**, including its security, reliability, maintainability, and adherence
+  to project standards.
+- **Ensuring they have the right to submit the contribution**, including compliance
+  with applicable copyright, licensing, attribution, and other third-party
+  requirements.
+- **Fully understanding the contribution**. The submitter must be able to explain it
+  in their own words, including its context, assumptions, design choices,
+  tradeoffs, and implications, and be able to answer questions and validate
+  changes arising during review.
+- **Participating directly in review and community interactions**. AI may assist with
+  communication, but must not substitute for the submitter's own understanding,
+  judgment, or engagement. Contributors must not act merely as an intermediary
+  relaying content between other community members and an AI system.
+- **Taking full responsibility for the contribution**. AI assistance does not
+  transfer responsibility for errors, omissions, security issues, licensing
+  problems, or other consequences to the AI tool or its provider.
+- **Respecting the time and attention of other community members**. AI must not be
+  used to generate high volumes of low-quality or speculative contributions, or
+  to shift the burden of understanding, verification, debugging, or cleanup onto
+  reviewers and maintainers.
+
+**AI tools must not autonomously publish contributions or communications
+to community channels without human review**; this includes code changes, issues, reviews,
+chat messages, and forum posts.
+
+## Additional Resources
+
+- [Explore our APIs](https://developers.stellar.org/docs)
+- [Stellar Developer Discord](https://discord.com/invite/stellardev)
 
 [help-wanted]: https://github.com/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+user%3Astellar+label%3A%22help+wanted%22
 [commit-msg]: https://github.com/erlang/otp/wiki/Writing-good-commit-messages