README.md
/CONTRIBUTING.md
enables a self service process for new contributors, so that they can find the answers to the most common questions on their own.README.md
for your project. It should contain:CONTRIBUTING.md
document. This document should answer frequently asked questions that contributors have asked in the past. There is no need to provide a comprehensive book up front. Rather, share information that has proven needed by contributors. Likely it will touch upon one or more of the following topics:README.md
and what kind of information to include in a CONTRIBUTING.md
file in various open source projects. Pages like how to write a readme that rocks, Open Source Guide from GitHub as well as the book Producing Open Source all have valuable information on what kind of information to provide. While Producing Open Source does not have a chapter on writing a good README per se, the Getting Started chapter does provide a fairly extensive list of things that fellow host team members, users and contributors will need. InnerSource projects likely will not cover all of those aspects right from the start, the list itself is helpful for inspiration for what one could cover.