From 3f17c8d4ff4f77481aa317503f6895d524b7816c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Kris Xia <xiajiayi0506@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2025 15:15:40 +0800
Subject: [PATCH] docs(contributing): update clone instructions to recommend
 forking first (#17637)

Update the setup instructions to guide contributors to fork the repository
on GitHub before cloning, which is the standard GitHub workflow for
open source contributions.
---
 CONTRIBUTING.md | 5 +++--
 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
index 3e835809b7..a418c8c57a 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTING.md
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -24,8 +24,9 @@ Before contributing code to LiteLLM, you must sign our [Contributor License Agre
 ### 1. Setup Your Local Development Environment
 
 ```bash
-# Clone the repository
-git clone https://github.com/BerriAI/litellm.git
+# Fork the repository on GitHub (click the Fork button at https://github.com/BerriAI/litellm)
+# Then clone your fork locally
+git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/litellm.git
 cd litellm
 
 # Create a new branch for your feature