Updates

CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -6,6 +6,8 @@ our community. Read through this document before submitting any issues or pull
 requests to ensure we have all the necessary information to effectively respond
 to your bug report or contribution.
 
+Please open an issue before opening a pull request, and have a discussion with a maintainer so we can validate that the feature you're interested in aligns with our plans and can be maintained. This also allows for realistic timeline setting and ranking against other priorities. 
+
 In addition to this document, review our [Code of Conduct](CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md). 
 For any code of conduct questions or comments, send an email to [email protected].
 

README.md

@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ Check out our [User Guide](docs/UserGuide.md) to get started!
 Read more about how `contentctl` can help test and validate your content in a real Splunk instance [here](docs/ContentTestingGuide.md).
 
 ## Contribution Guide
-[Contribution Guidelines for this project are here](CONTRIBUTING.md)
+Read [the Contribution Guidelines](CONTRIBUTING.md) for this project before opening a Pull Request.
 
 ## Ecosystem
 | Project               | Description                                             |

docs/ContentTestingGuide.md

@@ -8,4 +8,21 @@ There are a number of different testing modes that control which content will be
 contentctl test's default mode allows it to quickly test all content with requiring user interaction.  This makes it suitable for local tests as well as CI/CD workflows.  However, users often want to troubleshoot a test if it fails.  contentctl allows you to change the tool's behavior if and/or when a test fails:
 - --behavior never_pause - The default behavior.  If a test does not pass, the tool begins the next test immediately
 - --behavior pause_on_failure - If a test fails, then additional information about that test, and the raw SPL of the test, is printed to the terminal.  A user may then click (or CMD+Click) the "LINK" to begin interactively debugging the failed test on the Splunk Server.  Note that the credentials for the server are printed out at the very beginning of the test.  After you have finished debugging the failure, hit "Return" in the terminal to move on to the next test. The attack_data for this test remains loaded on the server for debugging until the user moves on to the next test.
-- --behavior always_pause - Similar to pause_on_failure, but this pauses after every test regardless of whether it passes or fails.  
+- --behavior always_pause - Similar to pause_on_failure, but this pauses after every test regardless of whether it passes or fails.  
+
+
+## Advanced Usage
+
+The following sections may not work without additional setup. The documentation of these features is not yet complete. These will be updated as the features become stabilized and ready to use by a larger audience.
+
+### Test Dry Run
+
+When setting up testing or when using the `test_servers` mode, you can utilize a `--plan-only` flag like
+```shell
+contentctl test --plan-only mode:changes --mode.target-branch develop
+```
+in order to generate a test plan. This can be saved and then used at a later time.
+
+### Test Server command
+
+Contentctl also has a `test_servers` mode that allows for the full test run against a preconfigured Splunk server, rather than the ephemeral Docker containers that `test` spins up.