docs: make contributing guide canonical

[jdx]

Summary

• keep the full contributing guide in docs/contributing.md for VitePress
• replace root CONTRIBUTING.md with a short link to the published docs page
• refine the opening contribution expectations and checklist language

Why

GitHub prefers the repository-root CONTRIBUTING.md, but VitePress can fail when a docs page is a symlink that resolves outside docs/. Keeping the full guide in docs and using a small root pointer avoids both problems.

Validation

• mise run docs:build

---

Note

Low Risk
Documentation and contributor-facing text only; no runtime, auth, or build logic changes beyond how contributing content is hosted.

Overview
Docs-only split so GitHub still has a root CONTRIBUTING.md while VitePress keeps the full page under docs/ (avoids symlink-outside-docs/ build issues).

Root CONTRIBUTING.md is now a brief pointer to the published contributing guide. The complete guide stays in docs/contributing.md.

Copy edits in the docs page: merged the old duplicate “before you PR” intro into Contribution Expectations; review gates now explicitly call out Conventional Commits on PR titles; the old “Contributing Guidelines” / “Pull Request Workflow” blocks become a single Pull Request Checklist with mise run render / mise run lint-fix and renumbered development tips.

^{Reviewed by Cursor Bugbot for commit 390affb. Bugbot is set up for automated code reviews on this repo. Configure here.}

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ℹ️ Review info

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: Organization UI

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro Plus

Run ID: cfe3301d-b9c4-414f-b402-ffcfbb14bff6

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 294e9b2 and 390affb.

📒 Files selected for processing (3)

• CONTRIBUTING.md
• CONTRIBUTING.md
• docs/contributing.md

---

_{Comment @coderabbitai help to get the list of available commands and usage tips.}

[greptile-apps]

Greptile Summary

Replaces the root CONTRIBUTING.md symlink with a short stub that redirects readers to the published docs at https://mise.en.dev/contributing, keeping the full guide in docs/contributing.md where VitePress can safely serve it.

• CONTRIBUTING.md is now a plain file (3 lines) instead of a symlink, resolving the VitePress symlink-outside-docs/ issue while preserving GitHub's discovery of the file.
• docs/contributing.md removes a duplicate preamble section, renames the checklist, adds the Conventional Commits title requirement to the review prerequisites, and corrects a numbering gap in the Development Tips list.

Confidence Score: 5/5

Documentation-only change with no code modifications; safe to merge.

The change converts a symlink to a plain stub file and edits prose in the contributing guide. There are no code, config, or logic changes of any kind, and the redirect URL matches the project's published docs domain.

No files require special attention.

Important Files Changed

Filename	Overview
CONTRIBUTING.md	Replaced the symlink (pointing to docs/contributing.md) with a 3-line stub that redirects readers to the published docs URL at https://mise.en.dev/contributing
docs/contributing.md	Consolidated duplicate preamble, renamed 'Contributing Guidelines' to 'Pull Request Checklist', added Conventional Commits requirement to review prerequisites, and fixed a numbering gap in the Development Tips list

_{Reviews (1): Last reviewed commit: "docs: make contributing guide canonical" | Re-trigger Greptile}

[github-actions]

Hyperfine Performance

mise x -- echo

Command	Mean [ms]	Min [ms]	Max [ms]	Relative
mise-2026.6.5 x -- echo	17.8 ± 0.7	16.5	23.5	1.00
mise x -- echo	18.7 ± 1.9	16.8	51.2	1.05 ± 0.11

mise env

Command	Mean [ms]	Min [ms]	Max [ms]	Relative
mise-2026.6.5 env	17.7 ± 0.8	16.0	21.4	1.00
mise env	18.5 ± 0.7	17.2	22.2	1.05 ± 0.07

mise hook-env

Command	Mean [ms]	Min [ms]	Max [ms]	Relative
mise-2026.6.5 hook-env	18.4 ± 0.9	16.7	23.1	1.00
mise hook-env	19.1 ± 0.9	17.3	23.3	1.04 ± 0.07

mise ls

Command	Mean [ms]	Min [ms]	Max [ms]	Relative
mise-2026.6.5 ls	14.8 ± 0.7	13.5	17.6	1.00
mise ls	15.7 ± 0.8	14.2	20.6	1.06 ± 0.07

xtasks/test/perf

Command	mise-2026.6.5	mise	Variance
install (cached)	131ms	133ms	-1%
ls (cached)	58ms	59ms	-1%
bin-paths (cached)	61ms	61ms	+0%
task-ls (cached)	121ms	124ms	-2%