[Azein]

Summary

• Add shared contribution, conduct, security, and pull-request guidance.
• Reorganize the README around requirements, installation, quick start, documentation, source builds, snapshots, support, and contribution while preserving Java-specific guidance.
• Standardize issue forms and routing, including a dedicated documentation-improvement form and private security reporting.

Motivation

Give contributors and SDK users a consistent path for proposing changes, reporting Java SDK issues, finding support, and handling sensitive reports while keeping the repository's Java, Gradle, OpenAPI generation, streaming, and compatibility conventions explicit.

Verification

• git diff --check
• pre-commit run markdown-links --all-files
• Parsed all GitHub Issue Forms as YAML and verified their configured labels exist.
• Built the Docusaurus static site successfully.
• Full Gradle verification is deferred to CI because this change does not modify Java or generated sources.

Checklist

• The change is focused and follows the contribution policy.
• Any substantial API, dependency, or third-party work was discussed with maintainers before implementation.
• ./gradlew checkApiCompatibility was run when the change could affect the public SDK surface.
• Generated OpenAPI code was not edited directly.
• New or changed behavior has focused tests when applicable.
• Default tests are deterministic and credential-free and cannot place live orders; trading examples default to paper trading and fixtures use synthetic data.
• Documentation and examples are updated when applicable.
• Applicable formatting, generation, test, API compatibility, and documentation checks pass.
• No credentials, account data, request or trace IDs, or other secrets are included.
• Any provider-specific integration or promotional contribution has written Alpaca approval confirmed by repository maintainers.

[Azein]

@greptileai

[greptile-apps]

Confidence Score: 5/5

[Low impact] The PR appears safe to merge, with a non-blocking correction to the Python prerequisite.

Findings

1.  Older Python breaks adoption ▶

Summary

Aligns contribution guidance and issue reporting while preserving Java-specific build and safety rules.

• Issue forms collect focused SDK details and guide reports to the right place.
• Contributors get shared rules for project work and pull requests.
• The README shows how to install alpaca-java and start with paper trading.

_{Reviews (2) · Last reviewed commit: "docs: align contributor setup instructio..." · Reviewed by Greptile}