# CONTRIBUTING.md Format

**Canonical:** https://apis.io/apis/contributing-md/format/  
**Provider:** CONTRIBUTING.md — https://apis.io/providers/contributing-md/  
**Documentation:** https://docs.github.com/en/communities/setting-up-your-project-for-healthy-contributions/setting-guidelines-for-repository-contributors

CONTRIBUTING.md Format is one of 2 APIs that [CONTRIBUTING.md](https://apis.io/providers/contributing-md/) publishes on the [APIs.io](https://apis.io/) network. Tagged areas include Community Health, Conventions, Documentation, and Markdown. The published artifact set on APIs.io includes API documentation and an API reference.

The CONTRIBUTING.md format is an unstructured Markdown convention that documents how to contribute to a project. GitHub recognizes the file in three locations checked in priority order: the .github folder, the repository root, and the docs folder. When a contributor opens an issue or pull request, GitHub automatically links to the file. Typical sections include contribution workflow, development setup, branch and commit conventions, code style, testing, pull request review process, code of conduct reference, and licensing terms.

## Machine-readable artifacts (5)

- **Documentation** — https://docs.github.com/en/communities/setting-up-your-project-for-healthy-contributions/setting-guidelines-for-repository-contributors
- **Reference** — https://contributing.md/
- **Guide** — https://opensource.guide/how-to-contribute/
- **Examples** — https://github.com/github/docs/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md
- **APIsJSON** — https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/contributing-md/refs/heads/main/apis.yml

## Other CONTRIBUTING.md APIs (1)

- [CONTRIBUTING.md Related Conventions](https://apis.io/apis/contributing-md/related-conventions/)

## Tags

Community Health, Conventions, Documentation, Markdown

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Profiled by [API Evangelist](https://apievangelist.com) and published on [APIs.io](https://apis.io/apis/contributing-md/format/). The API's provider profile, Kin Score and agent-readiness rating are at https://apis.io/providers/contributing-md/.