[MLC-40] repo: update readme

CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+# Welcome to our contribution guide
+
+Thank you for wanting to contribute to our project! We apprecaite any contributions that you make.
+
+Chat with MLX is an open source project and we love to receive contributions from our community — you! There are many ways to contribute, from writing tutorials or blog posts, improving the documentation, submitting bug reports and feature requests or writing code which can be incorporated into the application itself.
+
+## New Contributor Guide
+
+To get an overview of the project, read the [README](https://github.com/mlx-chat/mlx-chat-app/blob/main/README.md). Here are some resources to help you get started with open source contributions:
+
+- [Ways to contribute on GitHub](https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/exploring-projects-on-github/finding-ways-to-contribute-to-open-source-on-github)
+- [Setup Git](https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/quickstart/set-up-git)
+- [GitHub workflow](https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/quickstart/github-flow)
+- [Collaborating with pull requests](https://docs.github.com/en/github/collaborating-with-pull-requests)
+
+## Getting Started
+
+### Issues
+
+**Create**: If you spot a problem, [search if an issue already exists](https://docs.github.com/en/github/searching-for-information-on-github/searching-on-github/searching-issues-and-pull-requests#search-by-the-title-body-or-comments). If a related issue doesn't exist, you can open a new issue!
+
+**Solve**: Scan through our [existing issues](https://github.com/mlx-chat/mlx-chat-app) to find one that interests you. If you find an issue to work on, you are welcome to assign it to yourself and open a PR with a fix.
+
+### Make Changes
+
+1. Create your own fork of the code
+2. Create a working branch and start with your changes
+3. Commit and send a pull request 
+
+### Pull Request
+
+When you're finished with the changes, create a pull request.
+- Check to see your pull request passes our continuous integration (CI). If you cannot get a certain integration test to pass, let us know. We can assist you in fixing these issues or approve a merge manually.
+- Make sure your additions are properly documented!
+- Don't forget to [link PR to issue](https://docs.github.com/en/issues/tracking-your-work-with-issues/linking-a-pull-request-to-an-issue) if you are solving one.
+- We may ask for changes to be made before a PR can be merged, either using [suggested changes](https://docs.github.com/en/github/collaborating-with-issues-and-pull-requests/incorporating-feedback-in-your-pull-request) or pull request comments. You can apply suggested changes directly through the UI. You can make any other changes in your fork, then commit them to your branch.
+- As you update your PR and apply changes, mark each conversation as [resolved](https://docs.github.com/en/github/collaborating-with-issues-and-pull-requests/commenting-on-a-pull-request#resolving-conversations).
+- If you run into any merge issues, checkout this [git tutorial](https://github.com/skills/resolve-merge-conflicts) to help you resolve merge conflicts and other issues.
+
+### Your PR is Merged!
+
+Congratulations :tada::tada: we thank you! :sparkles:
+
+Once your PR is merged, your contributions will be publicly visible in the [Chat with MLX Repository](https://github.com/mlx-chat/mlx-chat-app).

README.md

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-# Chat with MLX
 
-... 
+<p align="center">
+    <img src="docs/github-banner.png" alt="wk-header" width="80%" alt>
+</p>
+
+**Chat with MLX** is a high-performance MacOS application that connects your local documents to a personalized large language model (LLM). By leveraging retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), open source LLMs, and MLX for accelerated machine learning on Apple silicon, you can efficently search, query, and interact with your documents *without information ever leaving your device.*
+
+Our high-level features include:
+- **Query**: load and search with document-specific prompts
+- **Converse**: switch model interaction modes (converse vs. assist) in real time
+- **Instruct**: provide personalization and response tuning
+
+## Installation and Setup
+
+:warning: **Preliminary Steps**: we are working to release with correct packaging ([pyinstaller](https://github.com/pyinstaller/pyinstaller/) & [electron-builder](https://github.com/electron-userland/electron-builder)) and authentication ([Apple codesign](https://developer.apple.com/support/code-signing/)). In the interium, please clone and run in development by first setting up authentication and requirements. 
+
+First, setup huggingface [access tokens](https://huggingface.co/settings/tokens) to download models
+```bash
+huggingface-cli login
+```
+Then download the npm/python requirements
+```bash
+cd app && npm install
+cd server && server requirements
+```
+Finally, start the application
+```bash
+cd app; npm run dev
+```
+
+## Contributions
+All contributions are welcome. Please take a look at [contributing](CONTRIBUTING.md) guide.