Contributing guide

docs/design     → mechanism specifications (self-contained)
ARCHITECTURE.md → module structure and dependency direction
GitHub Issues   → incremental delivery and acceptance tracking
code / tests    → runtime behavior and verification
website/        → reader-facing guides and reference

1. Open or claim an Issue.
2. Implement and test the change in focused slices.
3. When wrapping up a phase or preparing the PR, update the corresponding documentation (docs/design/ for mechanism changes, ARCHITECTURE.md for module layout changes, and website/ for user-visible behavior)—avoid standalone, low-density doc-only commits at the start of a task.
4. Follow the commit template (.gitmessage) and PR template (.github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md): open PR notes with ## What is this for (background and problem statement), followed by ## Implementation (structured points or paragraphs, with flowcharts or concise pseudocode where helpful) and ## Verification.

Do not commit plaintext secrets in YAML, lock files, or evidence archives; do not treat trajectory completion as PASS; and do not branch on benchmark names inside Core or plugins.

Full contributor instructions: AGENTS.md.