[no-ci] docs: clarify contributor coordination and issue readiness

[rwgk]

Description

An open issue can capture an investigation or tentative proposal before an implementation plan has been agreed. Make that distinction clear so contributors can coordinate useful work and avoid implementing approaches that maintainers are still evaluating.

• Clarify when contributors should coordinate scope and validation with maintainers, while welcoming bug reports, evidence, and direct PRs for small standalone corrections.
• Explain responsibility for agent-assisted contributions: provide relevant context, understand the complete diff, keep changes focused, and report actual validation and remaining gaps.
• Align AGENTS.md with this guidance. Require prominent readiness notices for investigations and proposals awaiting agreement, distinguish them from routine bug reports and approved work, and update the notices when the direction changes.

Related: #3074, which illustrates the need to distinguish an investigation from implementation-ready work. The cache investigation remains open.

Validation

• pre-commit run --files AGENTS.md CONTRIBUTING.md — passed.
• pre-commit run --all-files — passed on the merged head, including link checking.
• git diff --check main...HEAD — passed.

Checklist

• Validation appropriate to this documentation-only change is complete; no runtime tests were added.
• The documentation is up to date with these changes.

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ℹ️ Recent review info

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📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 9dc5f33 and c6a9bc5.

📒 Files selected for processing: 2

• AGENTS.md
• CONTRIBUTING.md

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📝 Summary

Summary by CodeRabbit

• Documentation
  • Expanded contributor guidance for reporting issues, coordinating before larger or shared work, and identifying when approval is needed.
  • Clarified expectations for contribution scope, validation, review, and infrastructure access.
  • Added guidance for agent-assisted contributions, including reviewing changes and reporting validation gaps.
  • Added instructions for documenting readiness, approved work, and changes in implementation direction while excluding private information.

AGENTS.md and CONTRIBUTING.md add guidance for issue reporting, contribution coordination, issue readiness notices, shared infrastructure changes, and agent-assisted contributions.

Changes: Contribution Guidance

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Scope and reporting AGENTS.md, CONTRIBUTING.md	Adds issue-reporting details and guidance on coordinating scope, review, validation, and shared work with maintainers.
Issue readiness and infrastructure AGENTS.md, CONTRIBUTING.md	Adds guidance for distinguishing observed problems from proposals, setting and updating readiness notices, and coordinating changes to shared infrastructure.
Agent-assisted contributions CONTRIBUTING.md	Adds expectations for providing context, understanding the full diff, validating changes, reporting checks and gaps, and following agreed scope.

Suggested reviewers: mdboom

Priority: ⬇️ Low

Change: Other

Merge Risk: ⚪ Minimal · up to c6a9b

The revised guidance distinguishes routine reporting from implementation approval, and permits explicitly requested reports without maintainer assignment. No actionable merge risk remains.

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