[RyanGutenkunst]

Description

This PR documents how to contribute to stdpopsim, including a policy on AI tools and AI agents. It touches four files:

• docs/introduction.rst: adds a Goals section describing stdpopsim's two equally important goals (reproducible simulation infrastructure and building a community) and the contribution policy that follows from them. Updates Getting involved to describe who can join the community and how newcomers should introduce themselves. Also fixes an outdated popgensims link to the issues page.
• README.md: adds a short Contributing section pointing to CONTRIBUTING.md and the Goals section.
• CONTRIBUTING.md (new): summarizes how we work with contributors, including AI-tool disclosure and a notice for AI agents.
• .github/pull_request_template.md (new): adds a pull request template with a required AI-use disclosure and a confirmation that the contributor can explain their changes.

Pre-commit checks pass, and the docs build cleanly with -W.

AI use disclosure (required)

• No AI tools were used to prepare this pull request.

• AI tools were used. I have described below which tools I used and their versions (for coding assistants, both the assistant and the AI model and model version it ran), what I used them for (for example, writing code, tests, or documentation, debugging, or reviewing), and which parts of the changes they produced.

Claude Opus 5.5 (claude-opus-5-5) helped draft and refine the policy text in all four files. Claude Code 2.1.311, running Claude Opus 5.5, converted the agreed text into the repository's file formats (RST for the docs, and adjusted Markdown heading levels), made the two small link and typo fixes in introduction.rst, turned the template's placeholder instructions into HTML comments, ran pre-commit and the docs build, and prepared the commit and this PR description.

Confirmation

• I have reviewed every change in this pull request and can explain it in plain language during review.

[mergify]

Queued — the merge queue status continues in this comment ↓.

[codecov]

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 99.84%. Comparing base (3a163f4) to head (c09b7ad).

Additional details and impacted files

@@           Coverage Diff           @@
##             main    #1903   +/-   ##
=======================================
  Coverage   99.84%   99.84%           
=======================================
  Files         143      143           
  Lines        5060     5060           
  Branches      522      522           
=======================================
  Hits         5052     5052           
  Misses          5        5           
  Partials        3        3           

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[mergify]

❌ Left the queue · codecov/project fails with this pull request

9 min in the queue, 9 min of it CI.

So far

• ✅ Entered the queue Tue 27 Oct, 17:52 · rule default · triggered by @RyanGutenkunst with the merge queue checkbox
• ❌ Checks failed · draft merge queue: checking #1903 on main (3a163f4) #1904
• 🚫 Left the queue 18:02 · c09b7ad

The failure is in this pull request. It failed tested alone on top of main.

Reason

The merge conditions cannot be satisfied due to failing checks

• codecov/project

Failing checks:

• ❌ codecov/project (job log)

To get back in the queue

• Push a fix: the pull request is queued again once its queue conditions match.
• If the failure is a flake, comment @mergifyio queue to queue it again as it is.

Merge conditions: 4 of 11 met

The batch, tested on draft #1904

	Condition
❌	check-success=codecov/project
❌	check-success=tests (macos-11, 3.10)
❌	check-success=tests (macos-11, 3.7)
❌	check-success=tests (ubuntu-20.04, 3.10)
❌	check-success=tests (ubuntu-20.04, 3.7)
❌	check-success=tests (windows-latest, 3.10)
❌	check-success=tests (windows-latest, 3.7)
✅	base=main
✅	check-success=build-deploy-docs
✅	check-success=codecov/patch
✅	check-success=pre-commit

Tick the box to put this pull request back in the merge queue (same as @mergifyio queue).

• Requeue this pull request

_{Times in UTC · dashboard · how the merge queue works}

[petrelharp]

What's the status on this - I can't tell from the meeting notes - has all this been discussed and approved? Or are we still in the discussion phase?

[RyanGutenkunst]

@petrelharp Everyone present seemed happy with it on Tuesday's meeting. We also agreed that the stakes were relatively low, and it could be revised if problems crept up.