Merge pull request #454 from MohamedHabarneh/fix/424

Update CONTRIBUTING.md

CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -83,6 +83,42 @@ Notice that the value `768px` is constant.
 The next most common breakpoint for larger desktop screens would be `1440px`.
 Really, the situation may affect your choice of breakpoint value, but the goal is to try to use only `768px` or `1440px` wherever possible for consistency-purposes.
 
+## Setting up your `.env` file
+
+To interact with data from GitHub (or any third-party service), a file named `.env` must be created in the root of your local repository instance.
+
+Some environment variables are necessary to gain access to data from third-party services.
+We use the `VITE_GH_ACCESS_TOKEN` environment variable to authenticate our requests to GitHub (and [prevent rate limiting](https://docs.github.com/en/rest/overview/resources-in-the-rest-api#increasing-the-unauthenticated-rate-limit-for-oauth-apps)).
+Below is how `VITE_GH_ACCESS_TOKEN` should be defined in your `.env` file, where `YOUR_PAT` should be replaced with your own generated [personal GitHub access token](https://github.com/settings/tokens).
+
+```sh
+VITE_GH_ACCESS_TOKEN=YOUR_PAT
+```
+
+**Fair Warning**: Never commit your _PAT_ (or any sensitive information) in files that are not ignored by our [`.gitignore`](https://github.com/EthanThatOneKid/acmcsuf.com/blob/main/.gitignore) file (`.env` being one of them).
+
+Other environment variables are needed to provide information that allows the program to fetch data from the correct place. It is okay to copy and paste the additional variables into your `.env` file as defined below because they are already public.
+
+```sh
+# General discussion on GitHub: <https://github.com/EthanThatOneKid/acmcsuf.com/discussions/categories/newsletter>
+VITE_GH_DISCUSSION_CATEGORY_ID=DIC_kwDOE7ysSc4CAC0o
+
+# Algo discussion on GitHub: <https://github.com/EthanThatOneKid/acmcsuf.com/discussions/categories/algo>
+VITE_GH_ALGO_CATEGORY_ID=DIC_kwDOE7ysSc4COe-m
+
+# Switch to 1 to turn on debug mode.
+VITE_DEBUG=0
+```
+
+Some environment variables are needed to run scripts that are used for purposes indirectly related to `acmcsuf.com` (such as the Gitcord scripts).
+
+```sh
+DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN=YOUR_BOT_TOKEN
+GUILD_ID=YOUR_GUILD_ID
+HUB_ID=YOUR_HUB_CHANNEL_ID
+ARCHIVE_CHANNEL_ID=YOUR_ARCHIVE_CHANNEL_ID
+```
+
 ## Custom Workflows
 
 In this repository, we use GitHub Actions to _automate all the things_ 😎