chore: update the contribution guidelines for external contributors

[akaladarshi]

Summary of changes

Changes introduced in this pull request:

• Update the contribution guidelines for the external contributions

Reference issue to close (if applicable)

Closes

Other information and links

Change checklist

• I have performed a self-review of my own code,
• I have made corresponding changes to the documentation. All new code adheres to the team's documentation standards,
• I have added tests that prove my fix is effective or that my feature works (if possible),
• I have made sure the CHANGELOG is up-to-date. All user-facing changes should be reflected in this document.

Outside contributions

• I have read and agree to the CONTRIBUTING document.
• I have read and agree to the AI Policy document. I understand that failure to comply with the guidelines will lead to rejection of the pull request.

Summary by CodeRabbit

• Documentation
  • Added contributor guidance to start pull requests from maintainer-accepted issues.
  • Updated the pull request checklist to include confirmation that an issue has been accepted.
  • Added guidance on referencing issues, handling small fixes, discussions, and AI-assisted contributions.
  • Improved formatting in the CoreOS K3s deployment documentation for easier reading.

[coderabbitai]

Walkthrough

The PR adds maintainer-accepted issue guidance to contributor documentation and the pull request template, and adjusts spacing in the CoreOS K3s deployment README.

Changes

Contribution guidance

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Accepted issue guidance .github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md, CONTRIBUTING.md	Adds a “Before Opening a Pull Request” section, links it in the table of contents and first-contribution guidance, and adds a corresponding pull request checklist item and reference.

CoreOS K3s README formatting

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Installation instruction spacing deployment/coreos-k3s/README.md	Adds blank-line spacing around FCOS installation, network deployment, and JWT command instructions.

Estimated code review effort: 1 (Trivial) | ~5 minutes

Possibly related PRs

• ChainSafe/forest#6500: Both PRs update the pull request template’s “Outside contributions” checklist and related contribution links.

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 5

✅ Passed checks (5 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check	✅ Passed	The title accurately reflects the main change: updating contribution guidelines for external contributors.
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.

✨ Finishing Touches

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Commit unit tests in branch akaladarshi/contributing-guideline

✨ Simplify code

• Create PR with simplified code
• Commit simplified code in branch akaladarshi/contributing-guideline

---

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

[coderabbitai]

Actionable comments posted: 2

🤖 Prompt for all review comments with AI agents

Verify each finding against current code. Fix only still-valid issues, skip the
rest with a brief reason, keep changes minimal, and validate.

Inline comments:
In `@CONTRIBUTING.md`:
- Around line 81-83: Update the contribution guidance sentence to use the
possessive phrase “a maintainer’s go-ahead” instead of “a maintainers go-ahead,”
leaving the surrounding instructions unchanged.
- Around line 207-208: Fix the contribution tip sentence near “Before Opening a
Pull Request” by adding appropriate punctuation before “see” or rewriting the
sentence so the guidance is grammatically correct while preserving its meaning.

🪄 Autofix (Beta)

Fix all unresolved CodeRabbit comments on this PR:

• Push a commit to this branch (recommended)
• Create a new PR with the fixes

---

ℹ️ Review info

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: Repository UI

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro

Run ID: 692b7d7f-968a-477b-985c-4ddd70c03f53

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between f83c1ad and 9599a81.

📒 Files selected for processing (3)

• .github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md
• CONTRIBUTING.md
• deployment/coreos-k3s/README.md

🔗 Linked repositories identified

CodeRabbit considers these linked repositories for cross-repo context during reviews:

• filecoin-project/lotus (manual)

[LesnyRumcajs]

LGTM

[codecov]

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 65.02%. Comparing base (f83c1ad) to head (9599a81).
✅ All tests successful. No failed tests found.

Additional details and impacted files

see 7 files with indirect coverage changes

---

Continue to review full report in Codecov by Harness.

Legend - Click here to learn more
Δ = absolute <relative> (impact), ø = not affected, ? = missing data
Powered by Codecov. Last update f83c1ad...9599a81. Read the comment docs.

🚀 New features to boost your workflow:

• 📦 JS Bundle Analysis: Save yourself from yourself by tracking and limiting bundle sizes in JS merges.