Create CONTRIBUTING.md

CONTRIBUTING.md

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+Contributions of improvements, fixes and new features are welcomed.
+We use a continuous integration pipeline that enforces unit tests and code style. We aim to keep
+the code clear, testable and well-documented.
+
+## Contributing
+(Legal stuff)
+
+This project welcomes contributions and suggestions.  Most contributions require you to agree to a
+Contributor License Agreement (CLA) declaring that you have the right to, and actually do, grant us
+the rights to use your contribution. For details, visit <https://cla.microsoft.com>.
+
+When you submit a pull request, a CLA-bot will automatically determine whether you need to provide
+a CLA and decorate the PR appropriately (e.g., label, comment). Simply follow the instructions
+provided by the bot. You will only need to do this once across all repos using our CLA.
+
+This project has adopted the [Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct](https://opensource.microsoft.com/codeofconduct/).
+For more information see the [Code of Conduct FAQ](https://opensource.microsoft.com/codeofconduct/faq/) or
+contact [opencode@microsoft.com](mailto:opencode@microsoft.com) with any additional questions or comments.
+
+
+# Guidelines for code:
+
+## Unit Tests
+All new code should have unit tests with at least 80% code coverage. There are some exceptions to this: for example, code that accesses online data and requires authentication. We can work with you on getting this to work in our build.
+We use pytest but most of the existing tests are also Python unittest compatible.
+
+## Type hints
+Use type annotations for parameters and return values in public methods, properties and functions.
+[Python Type Hints documentation](https://docs.python.org/3/library/typing.html)
+
+## Docstrings
+Our documentation is automatically built for Readthedocs using Sphinx.
+All public modules, functions, classes and methods should be documented using the numpy documenation standard.
+[numpy docstring guide](https://numpydoc.readthedocs.io/en/latest/format.html)
+
+## Code Formatting
+We use black everywhere and enforce this in the build.
+[Black - The Uncompromising Code Formatter](https://github.com/psf/black)
+
+## Linters/Code Checkers
+We use the following code checkers:
+- pylint (with --disable=bad-continuation)
+- mypy
+- bandit (with -s B303,B404,B603,B607)
+- flake8 (with --ignore=E501,W503)
+- prospector (see prospector.yml in root of repo for config used). Prospector runs:
+  - pycodestyle
+  - pydocstyle
+  - pep8
+  - pyroma
+  - pep257
+