docs: state what contributions the project accepts - #29
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Two automated pull requests arrived within 40 minutes of the tracker being
populated, both fork-to-PR in under four minutes, one from a self-described
"AI-assisted contributor" account created three days earlier. Separately, an
issue was claimed by an account that posted the same claim on five unrelated
repositories inside seven minutes.
None of it was malicious and one of the patches was reasonable work, but
reviewing generated drive-by changes to a security library costs more than the
changes are worth, and there was no written policy to point at when closing
them. Now there is.
Also documents three things contributors were left to discover:
- CI needs maintainer approval for first-time contributors, so absent
checks are expected rather than a problem with their PR
- security reports belong in SECURITY.md, not the tracker
- bypasses of the default keyword filter are documented behaviour, not
vulnerabilities
The good-first-issue labels have been removed from the tracker as well; they
were being scraped, which is how both PRs found the repo minutes after the
issues were filed.
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Why
Within 40 minutes of the tracker being populated, two automated PRs arrived (#27, #28) — both fork-to-PR in under four minutes, one from an account created three days earlier whose bio reads "AI-assisted contributor … Tips: buymeacoffee.com/…". Separately, #25 was claimed by an account that posted the same claim on five unrelated repos inside seven minutes.
Both PRs were closed. Neither was malicious, and #27's patch was reasonable work — but there was no written policy to point at, which made closing them feel arbitrary. Now there is one.
Root cause of the inflow: the
good first issuelabels feed public scrapers, which is how both PRs found a brand-new repo minutes after the issues were filed. Those labels have been removed from the tracker (separate action, no code change).What this adds
A What This Project Accepts section at the top of
CONTRIBUTING.md:rules.py/engine.py/decorator.pyneed to state what they change about blocking behavior and prove bad input is still blockedAnd three things contributors were previously left to discover on their own:
action_required.)SECURITY.md, not the trackerTone
Deliberately firm but not hostile, and it closes by saying the rules aren't meant to discourage genuine contributors. The goal is to have something fair to point at, not to look unwelcoming — #25 is still open and assigned to the contributor who asked for it.
Docs only. No code, no version bump.