doc(contributing): set contribution expectations

CONTRIBUTING.md

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+# How to Contribute
+
+Welcome to the Resonate project! We appreciate your interest in helping us build reliable 
+and scalable distributed systems. To get started, follow these simple steps:
+
+## Initial setup
+
+We follow the fork and branch workflow. There will be three Git repositories involved:
+
+1.  *upstream* - the resonate repository on GitHub.
+2.  *origin* - your GitHub fork of `upstream`. 
+3.  *local* - your local clone of `origin`
+
+These steps are only needed once and not for subsequent changes you might want to make:
+
+1. Fork the `resonate` repository on GitHub to create `origin`.
+   Visit [resonate](https://github.com/resonatehq/resonate) GitHub repository and click the `Fork` button.
+
+2. Make a `local` clone of your fork.
+
+    ```shell
+    git clone git@github.com:<your-user-name>/resonate.git
+    ```
+
+3. Add a remote pointing from `local` to `upstream`.
+
+    ```shell
+    cd resonate
+    git remote add upstream git@github.com:resonatehq/resonate.git
+    ```
+4. Double check the two remotes are referencing the expected url.
+
+    ```shell
+    git remote get-url origin   # git@github.com:<your-user-name>/resonate.git
+    git remote get-url upstream # git@github.com:resonatehq/resonate.git
+    ```
+
+## Development workflow
+
+<p align="center">
+    <img height="500"src="./docs/img/contributing.jpg">
+</p>
+
+Here is a outline of the steps needed to make changes to the resonate
+project.
+
+
+1. Make a local branch in your clone and pull any recent changes into it.
+
+   ```shell
+   git switch -c awesome_branch  
+   git pull upstream main
+   ```
+
+2. Make changes and commit to local branch.
+
+   ```shell
+   git add .
+   git commit -m "dead simple"
+   ```
+
+3. Pull any changes that may have been made in the upstream repository
+   main branch.
+
+   ```shell
+   git pull --rebase upstream main # may result in merge conflicts
+   ```
+
+4. Push your branch to the corresponding branch in your fork.
+
+   ```shell
+   git push origin awesome_branch
+   ```
+
+5. Select the branch you are working on in the drop-down menu of branches in
+   your fork. Then hit the `Compare and pull request` button.
+
+6. Once your pull request has been reviewed and approved by a maintainer, select 
+   the `Squash and merge` option. Edit the commit message as appropriate for the 
+   squashed commit.
+
+7. Delete the branch from `origin`:
+
+    ```
+    git push origin --delete awesome_branch
+    ```
+
+8. Delete the branch from `local`
+
+    ```
+    git switch main
+    git branch -D awesome_branch
+    ```
+
+## What to contribute to?
+
+Here are some areas where your contributions would be valuable:
+
+* Bug fixes for existing packages.
+* Refactoring efforts to improve code quality.
+* Enhancements to our testing and reliability efforts.
+* Add support for the following databases: MySQL, Elasticsearch, MongoDB.
+
+Thank you for your contributions and support in building a better Resonate! 🚀