# CONTRIBUTING - Draft

### Welcome!

We're so glad you're thinking about contributing to GovEx guidance.

Before contributing, we encourage you to read our CONTRIBUTING guide (you are here) and review our [LICENSE](https://github.com/govex/open-data-portal-requirements/blob/license-contributing/LICENSE.md). If you have any questions, you can email the GovEx team at <govex@jhu.edu>.

### Ways to Contribute

If you do not already have a GitHub account, you can [sign up for GitHub here](https://github.com/). In the spirit of open data, everyone is encouraged to help improve this project. Here are some ways you can contribute:

* by suggesting or drafting new content
* by reporting and discussing technical or substantive issues
* by translating content to a new language
* by writing or editing documentation
* by writing code and documentation (**no pull request is too small**: fix typos, add code comments, clean up inconsistent whitespace)
* by reviewing [pull requests](https://github.com/govex/open-data-portal-requirements/pulls)
* by addressing [issues](https://github.com/govex/open-data-portal-requirements/issues)

**Submit Great Issues**

* Before submitting a new [issue](https://github.com/govex/open-data-portal-requirements/issues), check to make sure [a similar issue isn't already open](https://github.com/govex/open-data-portal-requirements/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen). If one is, contribute to that issue thread with your feedback.
* When submitting suggestions for new content, please try to provide as much detail as possible, including the rationale for the new content and any supportive real life documentation.&#x20;

### Copyright

All in-line contributions to this project will be released as a GovEx project under [Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). By submitting a pull request, you are agreeing to assign your copyright interest to GovEx. Please do not contribute content you did not write yourself, unless you are certain you have the legal ability to do so.


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# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://govex.gitbook.io/open-data-portal-requirements/contributing.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.
