diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..89bc7807
--- /dev/null
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
+# Contributing guidelines
+
+Thank you (again) for your interest in the project!
+
+## Talk to us before commiting to a change
+
+We recommend you come and talk to us in the channel and/or open an issue
+before you start working on a feature, to **see if it aligns with our goals**.
+
+We'll do our best to review and discuss changes with you but we're also humans
+with other activities, please be patient with us too.
+
+## General guidelines
+
+The library is still **in development**, and while this is the case we adopt a
+**fail-fast** strategy, which is also a reason for the choice of the language.
+
+The earlier we catch bugs and fix them, the less chances they have to confuse
+users of our library, or make end-users give up on software developed using
+this library. This also helps improving other software in the ecosystem.
+
+## Keep commits short and meaningful
+
+To help with reviews, to facilitate reverts, reading and grepping through
+commit history, bisects: it is important for us that changes come in small and
+meaningful commits.
+
+That is, **don't bundle all the things in a single commit**, if a change can
+be added via different commits standalone and still make sense, then it's
+probably a good candidate for splitting.
+
+## Meta
+
+Do not forget to **update changelogs** and other crate metadata where necessary.
+
+Signing commits (`git commit -S`) and adding DCO bits (`git commit -s`) are
+welcome but not mandatory.
+
+## Ensure CI passes
+
+Code changes should **include documentation**. They should also **include
+tests** where appropriate, and pass the existing test suite.
+
+CI should pass to submit your changes. This is done by ensuring `cargo
+fmt` and `cargo test` pass (in the workspace). Please run `cargo fmt` as part
+of each of your commits.
+
+More thorough tests can be done locally with `act` or `forgejo-runner
+exec`, which is also what is run in the CI. We require docker to be setup for
+this to work.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index fe1dbf08..20ff827b 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -53,34 +53,5 @@ Contributing
 
 Thank you for your interest in the project!
 
-We recommend you come and talk to us in the channel and/or open an issue
-before you start working on a feature, to see if it aligns with our goals.
-
-The library is still in development, and while this is the case we adopt a
-fail-fast strategy, which is also a reason for the choice of the language.
-
-The earlier we catch bugs and fix them, the less chances they have to confuse
-users of our library, or make end-users give up on software developed using
-this library. This also helps improving other software in the ecosystem.
-
-Code changes should try to include documentation as possible. They should also
-include tests where appropriate, and pass the existing test suite.
-
-CI should pass to submit your changes. This is done by ensuring `cargo fmt`
-and `cargo test` pass (in the workspace). Please do not run `cargo fmt` as a
-separate commit but do it as part of each of your commits.
-
-More thorough tests can be done locally with `act` or `forgejo-runner
-exec`, which is also what is run in the CI. We require docker to be setup for
-this to work.
-
-Merge requests can contain as many commits as necessary, but commits should be
-kept rather small and meaningful (not include too many different things).
-
-Do not forget to update changelogs and other crate metadata where necessary.
-
-Signing commits (`git commit -S`) and adding DCO bits (`git commit -s`) are
-welcome but not mandatory.
-
-We'll do our best to review and discuss changes with you but we're also humans
-with other activities, please be patient with us.
+Contributing rules are available as
+[CONTRIBUTING.md](https://gitlab.com/xmpp-rs/xmpp-rs/-/raw/main/CONTRIBUTING.md) in the repository.