First public release

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+# Contributing
+
+Issues and merge requests are welcome at
+https://gitlab.com/extant2000/evidence-record.
+
+## Ground rules
+
+- A test that cannot fail proves nothing. If you fix a bug, add a test and
+  check that it fails against the unfixed code before you submit.
+- Measure, don't assume. Two modules with the same line count can still be
+  different programs.
+- Keep dependencies minimal. Every new runtime dependency needs a reason.
+- Explain why in comments, not what. The what is already in the code.
+- A breaking change needs a major version bump and a note in CHANGELOG.md.
+
+## Before you open a merge request
+
+Run both of these and make sure they pass:
+
+    npm run build
+    npm test