[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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• CONTRIBUTING.md

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📝 Summary

Summary by CodeRabbit

• Documentation
  • Expanded contributor guidance for reporting problems, distinguishing issue evidence from proposed solutions, and coordinating implementation.
  • Clarified when to wait for assignment or maintainer agreement, and when small standalone fixes or documentation corrections can be proposed directly.
  • Added expectations for focused changes, validation, review, and coordination on shared infrastructure.
  • Added guidance for agent-assisted contributions, readiness notices, approved work, implementation changes, and protecting 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 authorized scope, maintainer coordination, and focused contributions.
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, reporting validation and gaps, following test-authorship markers, and staying within agreed scope.

Suggested reviewers: mdboom

Priority: ⬇️ Low

Change: Other

Merge Risk: ⚪ Minimal · up to a7c2f

This change clarifies contributor expectations without introducing a concrete workflow conflict. It is ready to merge after normal checks.

- [ ] Autofix · Keep fixing CodeRabbit findings and required CI, and resolving merge conflicts

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