# Contributing Guidelines

Welcome to the AI plugin! Here you'll find information on how to get started contributing to the plugin.

### Merging PRs

All members of the [ai-provider-for-google-maintainers team](https://github.com/orgs/WordPress/teams/ai-provider-for-google-maintainers) within the WordPress org on GitHub have the ability to review and merge PRs.  If you are not a maintainer but have reviewed a PR and are confident in the code, approve the PR and comment pinging @wordpress/ai-provider-for-google-maintainers or a specific maintainer who has been involved in the PR.  Once a maintainer confirms there are no objections, you are free to merge the PR into `trunk`.

Most PRs will be automatically assigned a release milestone, but please make sure your merged PR was assigned one.  Doing so creates the historical legacy of what code landed when, and makes it possible for all project contributors (even non-technical ones) to access this information.

### Joining the ai--provider-for-google-maintainers team

If you have 2-3 meaningful accepted contributions, ask in the [#core-ai Slack channel](https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C08TJ8BPULS) to get added to a specific section of the CODEOWNERS file so you're auto-assigned for PR reviews.

If you have 3-5 meaningful PR reviews after being added to CODEOWNERS, ask in the [#core-ai Slack channel](https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C08TJ8BPULS) to get added to the ai-provider-for-google-maintainers team.

### Closing PRs

Sometimes, a PR may not be mergeable, no matter how much additional effort is applied to it (e.g. out of scope).  In these cases, it’s best to communicate with the contributor graciously while describing why the PR was closed, this encourages productive future involvement.

Make sure to:

1. Thank the contributor for their time and effort.
2. Fully explain the reasoning behind the decision to close the PR.
3. Link to as much supporting documentation as possible.

If you’d like a template to follow:

> Thanks \_\_\_\_ for the time you’ve spent on this PR.
>
> I’m closing this PR because \_\_\_\_. To clarify further, \_\_\_\_.
>
> For more details, please see \_\_\_\_ and \_\_\_\_.