# Contributing

The Pantheon Protocol is a living document by design. Its own revision rule: when a failure occurs that no discipline here would have prevented, the fix goes into the code and a line goes into this guide. If a failure got past every discipline on the page, that failure is a missing fable, and this repository wants it.

## What makes a good contribution

**A new fable for an existing discipline.** The strongest PRs replace or reinforce a "Where the lesson is written" example with a better-known or better-fitting incident from the public engineering record.

**A new discipline.** The bar is high on purpose: the guide's own preamble says every section must earn its place. A new discipline needs (a) a real failure mode that none of the existing thirteen prevents, (b) a procedure, (c) a fable that proves it, and (d) the error it prevents, stated plainly.

**A sharper procedure line.** If you can say an existing rule in fewer, harder words, do it.

## The three rules

1. **Real incidents only.** Public engineering record, or your own failure told honestly. No hypotheticals; the fables carry the guide, and invented fables carry nothing.
2. **One moral per fable.** A story that teaches two things teaches neither.
3. **The guide stays lean.** Every addition competes with the reader's attention. If your section makes the guide better but longer, ask whether it makes it better *enough*.

## Mechanics

- Edit `README.md` (the narrative) and `AGENTS.md` (the canonical runtime) together.
- `CLAUDE.md`, `GEMINI.md`, and `.github/copilot-instructions.md` are generated mirrors of `AGENTS.md`: same body, different header. Update them to match (copy the body from `## Priority` onward).
- `SKILL.md` carries the condensed version; one line per change is usually enough there.
- Keep the voice: plain declarative sentences, no hedging, the moral stated in one line.