docs: beginner-friendly local setup guide for new contributors

[lobsangshakya]

Who is this feature for?

This feature is for new contributors and developers who want to explore and contribute to AutoMQ. It will also help engineers learning Kafka-compatible streaming systems who want to quickly set up a local environment to test and experiment.

What problem are they facing today?

Currently, new contributors often struggle with the initial setup of AutoMQ. The existing documentation assumes prior knowledge of Kafka, cloud-native setups, and environment configuration. Without a clear beginner-friendly guide, getting the project running locally can be time-consuming and confusing, which discourages new contributors from engaging with the project.

Why is solving this impactful?

A beginner-friendly guide will lower the barrier to entry, improve onboarding, and help new contributors start contributing quickly. This strengthens the community and increases the adoption of AutoMQ.

Proposed solution

Provide a step-by-step local setup guide including:

1. Installing required dependencies
2. Cloning and building the repository
3. Running a local broker and creating topics
4. Producing and consuming example messages
5. Common troubleshooting tips

Additional notes

This PR is related to improving onboarding and documentation for new contributors. No code changes are included, its purely documentation-focused.

[superhx]

cc @KaimingWan

[KaimingWan]

@lobsangshakya This is a very good suggestion. Are you interested in completing this guide? I think a good approach would be to improve and optimize our existing Contributing Guide. What do you think? Reference: https://github.com/AutoMQ/automq/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING_GUIDE.md

[lobsangshakya]

Thanks for the suggestion! Yes, I would be happy to work on improving and optimizing the existing Contributing Guide.

My plan would be to review the current guide, identify areas that can be clarified or streamlined (especially for first-time contributors), and propose improvements for structure, clarity, and consistency.

I will share a draft PR for feedback once I have a solid first version. Please let me know if there are any specific areas you would like me to focus on.

[AnshThukral]

Hi all 👋

I’m also new to AutoMQ and Kafka internals, and this discussion is very helpful.

If it’s useful, I’d be happy to help with a small part of the documentation work — for example:

• clarifying a specific section in CONTRIBUTING_GUIDE.md
• improving wording for first-time contributors
• adding small notes based on a beginner’s perspective

Please let me know if there’s a section where an extra pair of eyes would help.
Thanks!

[KaimingWan]

@lobsangshakya That's great. It would be greatly beneficial if you could improve the CONTRIBUTING GUIDE from the perspective of developers exploring AutoMQ for the first time. I look forward to your contribution.