---
title: Contributing
description: Contributor-facing guide for working on OAT code, docs, markdown patterns, and skill authoring.
---

# Contributing

Use this section when you are changing OAT itself rather than consuming it as a user. It routes you to the right contributor contract for code changes, docs updates, markdown authoring patterns, and skill development.

## Contents

- [Contributing Code](code.md) - Repo setup, monorepo structure, quality gates, and PR expectations.
- [Contributing Docs](documentation.md) - Docs contract, local docs workflow, and docs-specific authoring guidance.
- [Markdown Features](markdown-features.md) - Supported docs syntax for callouts, tabs, Mermaid, and code blocks.
- [Writing Skills](skills.md) - Skill authoring guidance, runtime contracts, and governance.
- [CLI Design Principles](design-principles.md) - Cross-cutting CLI architecture and UX principles.
- [Commit Conventions](commit-conventions.md) - Traceable commit patterns for project and docs work.
- [Hooks and Safety](hooks-and-safety.md) - Safety and mutation contracts for provider-sync behavior.
- [Smoke Testing](smoke-testing.md) - Runbook for the live workflow smoke runner: prerequisites, scenarios, evidence reports, and recovery.
