The README links to the license, the changelog, and the contributing guide
These three files answer whether a reader may use the project, what changed since they last looked, and how to send a fix. A link that resolves to nothing is worse than no link, because it costs a click to learn the file is missing.
Observable check
README.md contains links whose targets are the license file, the changelog, and the contributing guide, and each target exists in the repository at a path its own rule accepts: the license file as R-COM-01 reads it, the changelog as R-CHG-01 reads it, and the contributing guide as R-COM-02 reads it.
Where this comes from
No upstream source. This is oss-kit's own position, and the argument for it is below.
That the three files exist is required elsewhere here and counted by a forge's community profile; that the README link them is this step. Observed: a repository can hold all three and still leave a reader guessing, because a forge renders the README and buries the file list, and on a narrow screen the list is a tap away rather than in view. Retire this rule if forges begin surfacing the license, changelog, and contributing guide as reliably as they surface the README. The Check named the literal filenames CHANGELOG.md and CONTRIBUTING.md until 2026-07-31, which contradicted R-COM-02 accepting a contributing guide in .github/ or docs/ and R-CHG-01 naming no changelog filename at all. It now delegates each target's path to the rule that owns it, so one rule's location list cannot drift from another's.