[audit/nice-to-have] Extract reusable automation patterns for other repos

[Displacedtex]

Priority: Nice-to-have — cross-cutting

Problem

Several improvements from this audit are general-purpose and worth templating across the owner's other repositories.

Reusable patterns to extract

• Link-check workflow (from [audit/critical] Add automated link-rot protection (CI) #3) — drop-in .github/workflows/link-check.yml for any docs-heavy repo.
• Stale-link issue bot — auto-opens an issue when scheduled link checks fail.
• Markdown lint action (from [audit/high] Add repository hygiene files (.gitignore, .editorconfig, markdownlint) #9).
• Standard .github/ scaffold — CONTRIBUTING, COC, issue/PR templates (from [audit/critical] Add CONTRIBUTING.md with entry format spec #4, [audit/high] Add .github/ governance scaffolding #8).
• Baseline hygiene bundle — LICENSE + .gitignore + .editorconfig (from [audit/critical] Add LICENSE file #2, [audit/high] Add repository hygiene files (.gitignore, .editorconfig, markdownlint) #9).
• Release Drafter / CHANGELOG.md — for any repo with versioned content.

Recommendation

Option A: Keep a private template-repo with all of the above, then use GitHub's "template repository" feature for new projects.
Option B: Publish as a public workflow-templates repo so others can benefit.

Acceptance criteria

• One template repo exists with the scaffolding above.
• At least one existing repo adopts it.

Part of the repo audit backlog. This issue is a meta-tracker; concrete work lives in the target repos.