docs: improve contributor experience with setup guide and enhanced gitignore

Author: StrataMind

.gitignore

@@ -56,3 +56,37 @@ docs-internal-data/
 
 # For intermediate data (like scraping for Elasticsearch indexing)
 tmp/
+
+# Additional common files to ignore
+*.log
+*.pid
+*.seed
+*.pid.lock
+.npm
+.nyc_output
+.grunt
+bower_components
+.lock-wscript
+build/Release
+.coverage
+.nyc_output
+.cache
+.parcel-cache
+.next
+out
+dist
+.nuxt
+.vuepress/dist
+.serverless
+.fusebox
+.dynamodb
+.tern-port
+
+# OS generated files
+.DS_Store
+.DS_Store?
+._*
+.Spotlight-V100
+.Trashes
+ehthumbs.db
+Thumbs.db

CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -0,0 +1,68 @@
+# Contributing to GitHub Docs
+
+Thank you for your interest in contributing to GitHub Docs! 🎉
+
+## Quick Start for Contributors
+
+### First-time Setup
+
+1. **Fork and clone the repository**
+   ```bash
+   git clone https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/docs.git
+   cd docs
+   ```
+
+2. **Install dependencies**
+   ```bash
+   npm install
+   ```
+
+3. **Start the development server**
+   ```bash
+   npm run dev
+   ```
+
+### Making Changes
+
+1. **Create a new branch**
+   ```bash
+   git checkout -b your-feature-branch
+   ```
+
+2. **Make your changes**
+   - Edit content in the `content/` directory
+   - Test your changes locally with `npm run dev`
+
+3. **Test your changes**
+   ```bash
+   npm test
+   npm run lint
+   ```
+
+4. **Commit and push**
+   ```bash
+   git add .
+   git commit -m "Brief description of your changes"
+   git push origin your-feature-branch
+   ```
+
+5. **Create a Pull Request**
+   - Go to GitHub and create a PR from your fork
+
+## Easy First Contributions
+
+- Fix typos in documentation
+- Improve code examples
+- Add missing installation steps
+- Update outdated links
+- Improve formatting and readability
+
+## Need Help?
+
+- Check the detailed [contributing guide](contributing/README.md)
+- Browse [help wanted issues](https://github.com/github/docs/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3A%22help+wanted%22)
+- Read the [content style guide](contributing/content-style-guide.md)
+
+## Code of Conduct
+
+Please note that this project is released with a [Code of Conduct](.github/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md). By participating in this project you agree to abide by its terms.

README.md

@@ -5,6 +5,42 @@ This repository contains the documentation website code and Markdown source file
 
 GitHub's Docs team works on pre-production content in a private repo that regularly syncs with this public repo.
 
+## Prerequisites
+
+- **Node.js**: Version 20 or 22 (see [engines](package.json) in package.json)
+- **npm**: Comes with Node.js
+- **Git**: For version control
+
+## Quick Start
+
+### Installation
+
+1. **Clone the repository**
+   ```bash
+   git clone https://github.com/github/docs.git
+   cd docs
+   ```
+
+2. **Install dependencies**
+   ```bash
+   npm install
+   ```
+
+3. **Start the development server**
+   ```bash
+   npm run dev
+   ```
+   The site will be available at `http://localhost:4000`
+
+### Available Scripts
+
+- `npm run dev` - Start development server with English content only
+- `npm run start-all-languages` - Start server with all language versions
+- `npm run build` - Build the production version
+- `npm test` - Run the test suite
+- `npm run lint` - Check code style and formatting
+- `npm run prettier` - Format code automatically
+
 Use the table of contents icon <img alt="Table of contents icon" src="./contributing/images/table-of-contents.png" width="25" height="25" /> on the top right corner of this document to navigate to a specific section quickly.
 
 ## Contributing