From 610843a44ae1932d8c56d084e0d1284a76161268 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: link2xt <link2xt@testrun.org>
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2025 21:25:04 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] docs: add RELEASE.md and CONTRIBUTING.md

---
 CONTRIBUTING.md |  7 +++++++
 RELEASE.md      | 15 +++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 22 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 CONTRIBUTING.md
 create mode 100644 RELEASE.md

diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..8f92ce25
--- /dev/null
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+# Contributing to the chatmail relay
+
+Commit messages follow the [Conventional Commits] notation.
+We use [git-cliff] to generate the changelog from commit messages before the release.
+
+[Conventional Commits]: https://www.conventionalcommits.org/
+[git-cliff]: https://git-cliff.org/
diff --git a/RELEASE.md b/RELEASE.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..7d571c80
--- /dev/null
+++ b/RELEASE.md
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+# Releasing a new version of chatmail relay
+
+For example, to release version 1.9.0 of chatmail relay, do the following steps.
+
+1. Update the changelog: `git cliff --unreleased --tag 1.9.0 --prepend CHANGELOG.md` or `git cliff -u -t 1.9.0 -p CHANGELOG.md`.
+
+2. Open the changelog in the editor, edit it if required.
+
+3. Commit the changes to the changelog with a commit message `chore(release): prepare for 1.9.0`.
+
+3. Tag the release: `git tag --annotate 1.9.0`.
+
+4. Push the release tag: `git push origin 1.9.0`.
+
+5. Create a GitHub release: `gh release create 1.9.0`.