Overhaul README and add developer documentation

[erinlkolp]

Summary

This PR significantly improves project documentation and adds developer-facing resources. The README has been restructured for clarity and completeness, and a new CLAUDE.md file provides comprehensive guidance for contributors and maintainers. Additionally, a PyPI publishing workflow has been added to automate releases.

Key Changes

• README.md overhaul:

  • Added CI and Python version badges
  • Expanded feature list with type annotations and testing highlights
  • Rewrote Quick Start example with practical usage patterns
  • Converted API reference to structured tables for VUDial and VUAdmin classes
  • Added security note about plain HTTP and key-in-URL authentication
  • Expanded testing section with concrete pytest commands
  • Improved contributing guidelines with specific code style expectations
  • Simplified license section and author attribution

• CLAUDE.md (new file):

  • Project overview and package metadata
  • Repository layout and development setup instructions
  • Test execution guide with fixture documentation
  • Class architecture reference (utility bases and public classes)
  • Security design constraints and rationale
  • Code conventions (logging, URL encoding, type annotations, docstrings)
  • Guidance for adding new API endpoints
  • Versioning and publishing procedures
  • CI/CD pipeline documentation
  • Documentation generation instructions

• .github/workflows/publish.yml (new file):

  • Automated PyPI publishing workflow triggered on GitHub releases
  • Builds distribution packages on Python 3.12
  • Uses OIDC trusted publishing for secure credential-free uploads
  • Uploads build artifacts for verification

Notable Details

• The README now emphasizes that all methods return raw requests.Response objects and that HTTP errors raise requests.exceptions.HTTPError
• Security section explicitly documents the plain HTTP and key-in-URL design constraints as intentional
• Developer documentation captures existing code patterns (no logging.basicConfig(), URL encoding with quote(), type annotations) to guide future contributions
• Publishing workflow uses modern PyPI OIDC trusted publishing instead of API tokens

https://claude.ai/code/session_01M3Tg4vggVzAnLvc38jnBK3