docs: add CONTRIBUTING.md documenting design philosophy and constraints (#43)

Names the load-bearing design constraints that shape the project so that
proposals touching them can be discussed against a written baseline rather
than reconstructed in each thread. Covers:

- Vanilla JS with no build step
- GET-only, stateless API
- No metadata database
- No in-app authentication
- Read-only access

Also adds a short "proposing changes" section pointing to prior design
discussions (#5, #29, #39) and a minimal development workflow snippet.

Fixes #42

Author: gordonmurray

CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -0,0 +1,106 @@
+# Contributing to Lance Data Viewer
+
+Thanks for your interest in contributing. This document covers what the
+project is, the design constraints that shape it, and how to propose changes.
+
+## What This Project Is
+
+Lance Data Viewer is a read-only, mount-and-go web UI for browsing Lance and
+LanceDB tables. The intended flow is:
+
+1. Point a Docker container at a directory of Lance files.
+2. Open a browser.
+3. Browse.
+
+There is no setup, no database to configure, no writes. The viewer is meant
+for local development, data inspection, and sanity-checking datasets produced
+by other pipelines.
+
+## Design Constraints
+
+A few constraints are load-bearing. They are the reason the project is small,
+fast to start, and easy to drop into a Docker Compose stack next to other
+services. Proposals that move away from them need a strong justification and
+are best discussed in an issue before code is written.
+
+### Vanilla JS, no build step
+
+The frontend is plain JavaScript, HTML, and CSS served directly from the
+container. There is no Webpack, Vite, esbuild, `tsc`, or `npm install` in the
+build path. This keeps the container image small, the contributor onboarding
+bar low, and the edit-refresh loop instant.
+
+Proposals to introduce TypeScript, React, Vue, Svelte, jQuery, or a CSS
+framework such as Tailwind fall under this constraint.
+
+### GET-only, stateless API
+
+Every endpoint in `backend/app.py` is a GET. There are no sessions, no
+server-side state between requests, and no POST/PUT/DELETE surface. The
+viewer's single job is to read Lance files and serialize them to JSON.
+
+Proposals that introduce POST endpoints, server-side query state, or filtering
+that accepts raw SQL from the client fall under this constraint.
+
+### No metadata database
+
+The Lance files in the mounted directory are the only source of truth. The
+viewer does not maintain a separate SQLite, DuckDB, or Redis alongside them.
+Adding one would introduce a lifecycle (migrations, eviction, consistency)
+that conflicts with the mount-and-go model.
+
+### No in-app authentication
+
+There is no login, no token check, and no RBAC. Deployments that need access
+control are expected to run the container on localhost or behind a reverse
+proxy (Nginx, Traefik, Caddy) that handles auth at the edge.
+
+### Read-only access
+
+The viewer never writes to the mounted Lance directory. The examples in the
+README mount `/data` with `:ro`, and the code path contains no write
+operations. This is deliberate: the viewer should be safe to point at
+production data without any fear of corruption.
+
+## Proposing Changes
+
+For small bug fixes and direct improvements, opening a PR is fine. For
+anything that touches the design constraints above, adds a new dependency, or
+meaningfully changes the architecture, please open an issue first so the
+approach can be discussed before code is written.
+
+Recent examples of the "issue first" path:
+
+- Adding media previews for columns that reference external assets: see the
+  approach discussion in #29.
+- Replacing the vanilla JS frontend with a framework or toolkit: see #5
+  (TypeScript) and #39 (jQuery + DataTables + DuckDB) for prior discussions of
+  why this direction does not fit.
+
+## Where To Start
+
+The improvement plan lives in the issue tracker. A few good starting points
+for new contributors:
+
+- Issues labeled `bug` for direct fixes.
+- Issues labeled `documentation` for low-risk contributions while learning the
+  codebase.
+- Issues labeled `enhancement` for feature work. Read the design constraints
+  above first.
+
+## Development Workflow
+
+```bash
+# Build with a specific Lance version (default: 0.29.2)
+docker build -f docker/Dockerfile \
+    --build-arg LANCEDB_VERSION=0.29.2 \
+    -t lance-data-viewer:dev .
+
+# Run with your data
+docker run --rm -p 8080:8080 -v $(pwd)/data:/data:ro lance-data-viewer:dev
+
+# Open the UI
+open http://localhost:8080
+```
+
+No frontend build step. Edit files in `web/vanilla/` and reload the browser.