Document bounty preflight quality gate

[Chris79OG]

Summary

• Add a concise contributor-facing preflight section to CONTRIBUTING.md for bounty PR authors.
• Document the existing scripts/submission_quality_gate.py --text-file ... --repo ... advisory workflow and what it checks.
• Replaces the same focused docs scope from PR Document bounty preflight quality gate #429, which is currently held because required project CI is not present/green on that inaccessible PR head.

Refs #426

Evidence

• Compared against scripts/submission_quality_gate.py, which checks bounty references, summary/evidence signals, payability, active attempts, similar open PRs, and maintainer activity when available.
• docs/agent-guide.md already documents this gate for agents; this PR adds the same contributor-facing preflight guidance to the main contributor entrypoint.
• Current diff against origin/main is one file: CONTRIBUTING.md, 15 insertions.
• Out of scope: API/MCP examples, behavior changes, broad docs rewrite, payout/price claims, or payment status claims.

Test Evidence

• python scripts/check_agents.py -> AGENTS.md ok
• python scripts/docs_smoke.py -> docs smoke ok
• python -m pytest -> 413 passed
• python -m ruff check . -> passed
• python -m ruff format --check . -> 79 files already formatted
• python -m mypy app -> success
• python scripts/check_deploy_ready.py with CI env values -> passed
• docker build -t mergework:ci . -> passed
• git diff --check origin/main...HEAD -> passed

MRWK

Related bounty or issue (Bounty #N or Refs #N for multi-award bounties): Refs #426

Summary by CodeRabbit

• Documentation
  • Updated contributing guide with a new "Preflight Checks" section describing a local validation workflow for bounty pull requests. Includes verification of bounty references, required evidence fields, capacity/attempt status, and detection of similar open or closed pull requests before submission.

[coderabbitai]

No actionable comments were generated in the recent review. 🎉

ℹ️ Recent review info

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: Path: .coderabbit.yaml

Review profile: ASSERTIVE

Plan: Pro Plus

Run ID: 4200ca79-a398-486d-9688-c96c76a96b7b

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 12c3dbd and a5f1b7b.

📒 Files selected for processing (1)

• CONTRIBUTING.md

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📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

CONTRIBUTING.md is updated with a new "Preflight Checks" section that documents a local validation workflow for bounty PRs. Contributors are instructed to draft their PR body and run python scripts/submission_quality_gate.py with --text-file pr-body.md and --repo ramimbo/mergework arguments. The section describes what the gate verifies and guidance for addressing validation warnings before submission.

Changes

Bounty submission preflight documentation

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Preflight checks workflow documentation CONTRIBUTING.md	New "Preflight Checks" section under "Claiming Work" documents the local draft-and-validate workflow: running submission_quality_gate.py with specified arguments and addressing any warnings about bounty references, evidence fields, capacity/attempt status, similar open PRs, or maintainer activity before submitting.

Possibly related PRs

• ramimbo/mergework#325: This PR's documentation explicitly describes running submission_quality_gate.py and the gate's specific validation checks that were introduced in that PR.
• ramimbo/mergework#335: This PR's documentation describes the "recent maintainer activity" check that was added to the submission quality gate in that PR.
• ramimbo/mergework#387: Both PRs add documentation about bounty preflight checks workflows, with this PR covering the local script-based validation in CONTRIBUTING.md.

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 5 | ❌ 1

❌ Failed checks (1 warning)

Check name	Status	Explanation	Resolution
Bounty Pr Focus	⚠️ Warning	PR claims +15 lines to CONTRIBUTING.md only, but actually adds 129 files with 21,814 insertions (full repo init). Commit lacks documented issue reference (#426). Scope vastly exceeds bounty PR bounds.	Align actual diff with stated scope: if bounty work is CONTRIBUTING.md documentation only, remove unrelated files; or revise objectives to reflect complete repository initialization scope and issue reference.

✅ Passed checks (5 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Title check	✅ Passed	The title 'Document bounty preflight quality gate' is concrete and directly names the changed surface—the CONTRIBUTING.md documentation of the submission quality gate workflow.
Description check	✅ Passed	The PR description includes all required sections: Summary (with clear intent), Evidence (with scope details and test runs), and MRWK (with issue reference). Test evidence is comprehensive and covers all specified checks.
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.
Mergework Public Artifact Hygiene	✅ Passed	The added "Preflight Checks" section documents a validation workflow with no investment, price, cash-out, payout claims, or security disclosures.

_{✏️ Tip: You can configure your own custom pre-merge checks in the settings.}

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

[weilixiong]

LGTM — preflight quality gate docs in CONTRIBUTING.md. Docs-only, clear instructions. Zero risk.

[adliebe]

Requested changes because PR #450 duplicates already-open PR #429.

Evidence checked:

• PR #450 and PR #429 have the same title: Document bounty preflight quality gate.
• Both touch only CONTRIBUTING.md.
• Both have the same diff stat: 15 additions, 0 deletions.
• The added hunk is identical: ## Preflight Checks, the same python scripts/submission_quality_gate.py --text-file pr-body.md --repo ramimbo/mergework command, and the same paragraph about bounty reference, summary, validation evidence, open award capacity, active attempts, similar open PRs, and recent maintainer activity.
• PR #429 is still open and already has prior human review history.

Validation:

• Fetched pull/429/head:pr-429 and pull/450/head:pr-450.
• git diff --stat 12c3dbd462d6647d50bfc8115b852e7cb338bb5b..pr-450 -> CONTRIBUTING.md | 15 +++++++++++++++
• git diff --stat 764e9ed91b0b28b6eb8a7501ecf6bc85b497c4c7..pr-429 -> CONTRIBUTING.md | 15 +++++++++++++++
• The no-color diffs for both PRs show the same inserted hunk.
• On PR #450 head a5f1b7b6058c653a5fc757e5037967b5810cbaaa: python scripts/docs_smoke.py -> docs smoke ok
• ruff check CONTRIBUTING.md scripts/submission_quality_gate.py tests/test_submission_quality_gate.py -> All checks passed
• git diff --check 12c3dbd462d6647d50bfc8115b852e7cb338bb5b..pr-450 -> clean
• GitHub combined status for PR #450 head is success with CodeRabbit success.

Recommendation: close PR #450 as duplicate of PR #429, or reopen with a non-overlapping documentation improvement after #429 is resolved.

[ramimbo]

Closing this as a duplicate of the already-open #429 preflight-quality-gate docs PR. The review claim identifying the duplicate was handled in the review-bounty batch, but this PR itself is not accepted for #426.