Convert README AND CONTRIBUTING from rst to md and update the contents.

AGENTS.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 # Agent guidelines
 
-Read [CONTRIBUTING.rst](CONTRIBUTING.rst) for code style, linting (e.g. `make lint`, `make fmt`), and release process.
+Read [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md) for code style, linting (e.g. `make lint`, `make fmt`), and release process.
 
 ## Testing
 

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -16,6 +16,9 @@
   class-based `DocumentLoader` instances while preserving the existing
   callable factory API. The concrete `RequestsDocumentLoader` and
   `AioHttpDocumentLoader` classes are also importable from `pyld`.
+- Convert `./README.rst` and `./CONTRIBUTING.rst` (reStructuredText) to 
+  `./README.md` and `./CONTRIBUTING.md` (markdown). Also update their 
+  contents to reflect the current state of the repo. 
 
 ### Added
 - `pyld.DocumentLoader` abstract base class for class-based document loaders,
@@ -258,7 +261,7 @@
 - **1.0.0**!
 - [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/) is now past the "initial
   development" 0.x.y stage (after 6+ years!).
-- [Conformance](README.rst#conformance):
+- [Conformance](README.md#conformance):
   - JSON-LD 1.0 + JSON-LD 1.0 errata
   - JSON-LD 1.1 drafts
 - Thanks to the JSON-LD and related communities and the many many people over

CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -0,0 +1,80 @@
+# Contributing to PyLD
+
+Want to contribute to PyLD? Great! Here are a few notes:
+
+## Code
+
+* In general, follow the common [PEP 8 Style Guide](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/).
+* Try to make the code pass [ruff](https://docs.astral.sh/ruff/) checks.
+
+  * `make lint` or `ruff check lib/pyld/*`
+  * You can also apply automatic fixing and formatting 
+    using `make fmt`
+
+* Use version `X.Y.Z-dev` in dev mode.
+* Use version `X.Y.Z` for releases.
+
+## Documentation
+
+The public documentation site is built with MkDocs Material.
+
+* Install documentation dependencies:
+
+  * `pip install -r docs/requirements.txt`
+
+* Preview documentation locally:
+
+  * `mkdocs serve`
+
+* Check documentation before submitting changes:
+
+  * `mkdocs build --strict`
+
+* Refresh bundled JSON-LD context files:
+
+  * `make download-bundled-contexts`
+
+## Versioning
+
+* Follow the [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/) guidelines.
+
+## Release Process
+
+* `$EDITOR CHANGELOG.md`: update CHANGELOG with new notes, version, and date.
+* commit changes
+* `$EDITOR lib/pyld/__about__.py`: update to release version and remove `-dev` suffix.
+* `git commit CHANGELOG.md lib/pyld/__about__.py -m "Release {version}."`
+* `git tag {version}`
+* `$EDITOR lib/pyld/__about__.py`: update to next version and add `-dev` suffix.
+* `git commit lib/pyld/__about__.py -m "Start {next-version}."`
+* `git push --tags`
+
+To ensure a clean [package](https://pypi.org/project/PyLD/) upload to [PyPI](https://pypi.org/),
+use a clean checkout, and run the following:
+
+* For more info, look at the packaging 
+  [guide](https://packaging.python.org/en/latest/guides/distributing-packages-using-setuptools/).
+* Setup an [API token](https://pypi.org/help/#apitoken). Recommend using a
+  specific "PyLD" token and set it up as a "repository" in your
+  [`~/.pypirc`](https://packaging.python.org/en/latest/specifications/pypirc/)
+  for use in the upload command.
+* The below builds and uploads a sdist and wheel. Adjust as needed depending
+  on how you manage and clean "dist/" dir files.
+* `git checkout {version}`
+* `python3 -m build`
+* `twine check dist/*`
+* `twine upload -r PyLD dist/*`
+
+## Implementation Report Process
+
+As of early 2020, the process to generate an EARL report for the official 
+[JSON-LD Processor Conformance](https://w3c.github.io/json-ld-api/reports/) page is:
+
+* Run the tests on the `json-ld-api` and `json-ld-framing` test repos to
+  generate a `.jsonld` test report as explained in [README.md](./README.md#tests)
+* Use the [rdf](https://rubygems.org/gems/rdf) tool to generate a `.ttl`:
+
+  * `rdf serialize pyld-earl.jsonld --output-format turtle -o pyld-earl.ttl`
+
+* Optionally follow the [report instructions](https://github.com/w3c/json-ld-api/tree/master/reports) to generate the HTML report for inspection.
+* Submit a PR to the [json-ld-api repository](https://github.com/w3c/json-ld-api/pulls) with at least the `.ttl`.

MANIFEST.in

@@ -1,2 +1,2 @@
-include README.rst README.txt LICENSE CHANGELOG.md
+include README.md README.txt LICENSE CHANGELOG.md
 recursive-include lib/pyld/documentloader/frozen/bundled *.jsonld