add contributing guidelines - fixes #167

contributing.md

@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
+# Contributing to AVA
+
+✨ Thanks for contributing to AVA! ✨
+
+## How can I contribute?
+
+### Improve documentation
+
+As a user of AVA you're the perfect candidate to help us improve our documentation. Typo corrections, error fixes, better explanations, more examples, etc. Open issues for things that could be improved. [Help translate our docs.](https://github.com/sindresorhus/ava-docs) Anything. Even improvements to this document.
+
+### Improve issues
+
+Some issues are created with missing information, not reproducible, or plain invalid. Help make them easier to resolve. Triaging issues takes a lot of time that we could rather spend on fixing bugs and adding features.
+
+### Give feedback on issues
+
+We're always looking for more opinions on discussions in the issue tracker. It's a good opportunity to influence the future direction of AVA.
+
+### Hang out in our chat
+
+We have a [chat](https://gitter.im/sindresorhus/ava). Jump in there and lurk, talk to us, and help others.
+
+### Submitting an issue
+
+- The issue tracker is for issues. Use our [chat](https://gitter.im/sindresorhus/ava) or [Stack Overflow](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/ava) for support.
+- Search the issue tracker before opening an issue.
+- Ensure you're using the latest version of AVA.
+- Use a clear and descriptive title.
+- Include as much information as possible: Steps to reproduce the issue, error message, Node.js version, operating system, etc.
+- The more time you put into an issue, the more we will.
+- [The best issue report is a failing test proving it.](https://twitter.com/sindresorhus/status/579306280495357953)
+
+### Submitting a pull request
+
+- Non-trivial changes are often best discussed in an issue first.
+- New features should be accompanied with tests and documentation.
+- Don't include unrelated changes.
+- Lint and test before submitting the pull request by running `$ npm test`.
+- Make the pull request from a [topic branch](https://github.com/dchelimsky/rspec/wiki/Topic-Branches), not master.
+- Use a clear and descriptive title for the pull request and commits.
+- Write a convincing description of why we should land your pull request. It's your job to convince us. Answer "why" it's needed and provide use-cases.
+- You might be asked to do changes to your pull request. There's never a need to open another pull request. [Just update the existing one.](https://github.com/RichardLitt/docs/blob/master/amending-a-commit-guide.md)

readme.md

@@ -6,6 +6,8 @@
 
 Even though JavaScript is single-threaded, IO in Node.js can happen in parallel due to its async nature. AVA takes advantage of this and runs your tests concurrently, which is especially beneficial for IO heavy tests. In addition, test files are run in parallel as separate processes, giving you even better performance and an isolated environment for each test file. [Switching](https://github.com/sindresorhus/pageres/commit/663be15acb3dd2eb0f71b1956ef28c2cd3fdeed0) from Mocha to AVA in Pageres brought the test time down from 31 sec to 11 sec. Having tests run concurrently forces you to write atomic tests, meaning tests don't depend on global state or the state of other tests, which is a great thing!
 
+*Read our [contributing guide](contributing.md) if you're looking to contribute (issues/PRs/etc).*
+
 
 ## Table of Contents