diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
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@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+# Contributing to AgentP
+
+Thanks for your interest in improving AgentP! Bug reports, suggestions, and pull requests are welcome. For substantial changes, please open an issue first so we can discuss the approach.
+
+## Copyright assignment
+
+By submitting a pull request to AgentP, you agree to assign, and hereby assign, to **ByteMagic Inc.** all copyright you own in the code, documentation, and other original material you submit in that pull request.
+
+You confirm that you own those rights or are authorized to make this assignment on the copyright owner’s behalf. Identify any third-party material and its license; this assignment does not cover rights you do not own.
+
+Submitting a pull request does not obligate ByteMagic Inc. to accept, merge, release, or maintain your contribution. AgentP remains distributed under GPL-3.0-only.
+
+## Before submitting
+
+- Follow the repository’s conventions in [AGENTS.md](AGENTS.md).
+- Keep changes focused and include tests where appropriate.
+- Run formatting, linting, and tests as described in the [README](README.md#building-from-source).
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
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--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -340,7 +340,7 @@ cargo fmt --all -- --check && cargo clippy --all-targets -- -D warnings && cargo
 
 ## Contributing
 
-Issues and PRs welcome at <https://github.com/ByteMagicInc/AgentP>. See [AGENTS.md](AGENTS.md) for architecture details. Start commit messages with `Fix`, `Add`, `Refactor`, or `Update` so the changelog groups them correctly.
+Issues and PRs welcome at <https://github.com/ByteMagicInc/AgentP>. Read [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md) before you contribute and [AGENTS.md](AGENTS.md) for architecture details. Start commit messages with `Fix`, `Add`, `Refactor`, or `Update` so the changelog groups them correctly.
 
 Maintainers: see the short [release guide](docs/releasing.md).