# Contributing

This repository improves through practitioner contributions. The bar is simple: **sourced, useful, investigation-focused.**

## What is welcome

- **New case files** — use [`case-files/TEMPLATE.md`](case-files/TEMPLATE.md). Every factual claim needs a public source. Incidents that were *investigated* (even partially, even badly) are especially valuable: how the investigation went is part of the record.
- **Corrections** — if the public record has moved (a postmortem published, an attribution made, a retraction issued), open an issue or PR with the source. Corrections are the most valuable contribution of all.
- **Regulatory updates** — new obligations, finalized guidance, changed deadlines. Cite the primary legal source, not commentary.
- **Frameworks and tools** — with one sentence on what it covers and one on what it does not. "Awesome list" entries without that assessment will be asked to add it.
- **Translations and plain-language rewrites** — accessibility beyond the technical community is a core principle.

## What is not

- Marketing for products or services (including the maintainer's own).
- Speculation presented as fact. Hypotheses are fine when labeled as hypotheses — that is how investigations work.
- Confidential or hacked material. Public record only.
- Personal information about individuals beyond what they have themselves published in connection with an incident.

## Case file standards

1. **Separate observation from inference.** "The agent deleted the database" is observation. "The agent panicked" is the agent's own claim — attribute it as such.
2. **The agent's statements are evidence, not testimony.** Treat model outputs about its own behavior as artifacts to be assessed, not explanations to be accepted.
3. **State the investigation status honestly.** "No formal investigation was conducted or published" is a finding. Most current case files end this way; documenting that pattern is the point.
4. **Date everything.** Incident date, source dates, and the file's own *last reviewed* date.

## Process

Open an issue first for new case files or structural changes; PRs directly for corrections and link additions. Be kind in review — many contributors here come from outside software and are using GitHub for the first time. That is by design.

*Last reviewed: June 2026*