diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a50186c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -0,0 +1,63 @@
+# Contributing
+
+Contributions to `bwavfile` are welcome!
+
+This project is currently in a maintenance phase, new features are entertained if we
+believe there is some demand for them but for the most part our current priorities 
+are:
+
+* Addressing bugs
+* Keeping the codebase modern as the Rust language evolves
+
+This being said, there are some features that we've been wanting for some time and 
+new contributors are welcome to take a swing at these:
+
+* Reading `levl` metadata for the generation of waveform overviews.
+* Reading `smpl` metadata for reading sampler data, note assignments, loops etc.
+
+## Adding New Features
+
+If you are adding a large amount of new functionality, please weigh the amount of 
+work you're doing against the potential benefit, the burden on the maintainers to
+review the work, and the technical debt incurred.
+
+In general,
+
+* new features should address new technologies; do not expend large amounts of
+  effort to implement features that are primarily of historical interest.
+* new features should address the needs of professional users in a music or media
+  production environment.
+
+Features that implement new reading functionality must, when submitted, include 
+test WAV files created empirically by third-party software. 
+
+## Regarding use of Agents
+
+`bwavfile` is an open-source project that is offered free for no commerical gain, and 
+is developed and maintained for educational and creative reasons.
+
+If you use an agent or LLM to produce code for it you are missing out on the benefits 
+of contributing to an open-source project, particularly community, collaboration with 
+other developers and designers, and being able to learn and experiment without the 
+burden of deadlines or worrying about business cases or profits.
+
+This project is supposed to be fun, do not let machines have fun for you.
+
+We can't prevent you from using LLMs to contribute to this project but we ask you 
+abide by the following eitiquette when doing so:
+
+* All communication with the maintainers must be written by a human in their own
+  voice. Never use an LLM to craft thread comments, discussion posts, issues, emails
+  or other correspondence with other developers or the maintainers. 
+* PRs must be submitted by a person. Do not allow an agent to submit its own PRs to
+  this project.
+* Especially if you are a new contributor to this project, please submit only one PR
+  at a time and please restrict the subject matter of the PR to a specific unit,
+  module or tool. All submissions have to be reviewed and understood by the
+  maintainers before they can be merged.
+
+Obviously we can't verify if you follow all of these rules but certain telltale 
+traits of LLM-predicted text or code will raise a flag: lack of brevity in 
+descriptions or code comments, large amounts of text describing your process or 
+steps that add little to understanding the changes you've made, use of an 
+obsequious tone or being excessively accomodating.