diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
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+We welcome contributions from the community. Please read the following guidelines carefully to
+maximize the chances of your PR being merged.
+
+# Communication
+
+* Before starting work on a major feature, please reach out to us via [GitHub](https://github.com/envoyproxy/nighthawk) or [Slack](https://envoyproxy.slack.com/archives/CDX3CGTT9). We will make sure no one else is already working on it and ask you to open a GitHub issue.
+* Small patches and bug fixes don't need prior communication.
+
+# Coding style
+
+* Coding style mirrors [Envoy's policy](https://github.com/envoyproxy/envoy/blob/master/STYLE.md)
+
+# Breaking change policy
+
+Both API and implementation stability are important to Nighthawk. Since the API is consumed by clients beyond Nighthawk, breaking changes to that are prohibited.
+
+# Submitting a PR
+
+* Generally Nighthawk mirrors [Envoy's policy](https://github.com/envoyproxy/envoy/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#submitting-a-pr) with respect to PR submission policy.
+* Any PR that changes user-facing behavior **must** have associated documentation in [docs](docs) as
+  well as [release notes](docs/root/version_history.md).
+
+# PR review policy for maintainers
+
+* Generally Nighthawk mirrors [Envoy's policy](https://github.com/envoyproxy/envoy/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#pr-review-policy-for-maintainers) with respect to maintainer review policy.
+* See [OWNERS.md](OWNERS.md) for the current list of maintainers.
+
+# DCO: Sign your work
+
+Commits need to be signed off. See [here](https://github.com/envoyproxy/envoy/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#dco-sign-your-work).
+
+
+## Triggering CI re-run without making changes
+
+See [here](https://github.com/envoyproxy/envoy/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#triggering-ci-re-run-without-making-changes).
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+# Maintainers
+
+This document aims to assist [maintainers](OWNERS.md).
+
+## Envoy domain expertise
+
+As a guideline, concepts in Nighthawk that are derived from Envoy
+require someone with Envoy domain expertise in review. Notable examples
+are the way Nighthawk internally computes cluster configuration, its
+connection pool derivations, the `StreamDecoder` class, as well as anything related to the Nighthawk test server.
+
+See [OWNERS.md](OWNERS.md) to find maintainers with expertise of
+Envoy internals.
+
+## Pre-merge checklist
+
+- Does the PR have breaking changes? Then that should be explicitly mentioned in the [version history](docs/root/version_history.md).
+- New features should be added to the [version history](docs/root/version_history.md).
+- Breaking changes to the [protobuf APIs](api/) are not allowed.
+
+## Updates to the Envoy dependency
+
+We try to [regularly synchronize our Envoy dependency](https://github.com/envoyproxy/nighthawk/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+is%3Aclosed+%22update+envoy%22+) with the latest revision. Nighthawk reuses large parts of Envoy's build system and CI infrastructure. When we update, that looks like:
+
+- A change to [repositories.bzl](bazel/repositories.bzl) to update the commit and SHA.
+- A sync of [.bazelrc](.bazelrc) with [Envoy's version](https://github.com/envoyproxy/envoy/blob/master/.bazelrc) to update our build configurations.
+- A sync of the build image sha used in the [ci configuration](.circleci/config.yml) with [Envoy's version](https://github.com/envoyproxy/envoy/blob/master/.circleci/config.yml) to sync our CI testing environment.
+- Sometimes the dependency update comes with changes that break our build. We include any changes required to Nighthawk to fix that.
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+* See [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md) for general contribution guidelines.
+
+This page lists all active maintainers and their areas of expertise. This can be used for
+routing PRs, questions, etc. to the right place.
+
+# Maintainers
+
+* Otto van der Schaaf ([oschaaf](https://github.com/oschaaf)) (oschaaf@we-amp.com)
+  * All things Nighthawk
+* Harvey Tuch ([htuch](https://github.com/htuch)) (htuch@google.com)
+  * Envoy internals, architecture and performance methodology.
+* John Plevyak ([jplevyak](https://github.com/jplevyak)) (jplevyak@google.com)
+  * Envoy internals and architecture.
+* Jakub Sobon ([mum4k](https://github.com/mum4k)) (mumak@google.com)
+  * APIs, general functionality and miscellany.