[Beginner]: correct README to use long form links and not relative links

[exploreriii]

🐥 Beginner Friendly

Welcome! This Beginner Issue is designed to be a natural next step after good first issues.

It nudges you to:

• Research existing patterns
• Own more implementation decisions
• Test your changes

Difficulty:

• Requires knowledge of our workflow
• Beginner to intermediate Python and Git
• Beginner DLT/Blockchain experience

Important

We recommend completing at least 3 good first issues before attempting a beginner issue.

Tip

You should be comfortable with:

• Forking, branching, committing (with DCO + GPG signing), and opening a pull request without a tutorial
• Reading beginner Python code you did not write and following its patterns
• Handling simple merge conflicts in CHANGELOG.md
• Keeping your fork up to date with main by rebasing
• Looking things up on your own before asking for help

If any of that feels unfamiliar, good first issues might still be the most rewarding path
for you right now —
find one here.
You can always come back when you are ready.

Support: A maintainer actively monitors this issue and will help guide your implementation ideas.

⏱️ Typical time to complete: 4-6 hours
🧩 Difficulty: Manageable but requires investigation and testing
🎓 Best for: Beginner contributors

---

🏁 When this issue is complete, you will have:

✅ Improved your research abilities
✅ Improved your knowledge of the codebase
✅ Owned implementation decisions
✅ Created basic tests

👾 Description of the issue

Our README.md links are mostly rendering nicely on GITHUB but not on PYPI
https://pypi.org/project/hiero-sdk-python/

most of the links to documentation here are broken, because we are using GITHUB RELATIVE LINKS and not the full link

Before claiming:

• Check the issue labels to see what area this touches
• Read the CodeRabbit AI plan (posted as a comment) for a rough implementation overview
• If this feels like too big a step, that is fine — try another beginner issue or a Good First Issue first

💡 Solution

We should replace all hardcoded relative links in the README to use the original long form link

🔍 Background Research

Identify all relative links:

e.g.

Full setup instructions: Setup Guide
A sample file is provided: .env.example

• Running Examples - Complete guide to all SDK operations with code examples
• Examples Directory - Ready-to-run example scripts
• Contributing Guide - Start here!
• Setup Guide - First-time environment setup
• Windows Setup Guide - Step-by-step guide for Windows users
• Workflow Guide - Day-to-day development workflow
• Signing Guide - GPG and DCO commit signing (required)
• Changelog Guide - How to write changelog entries
• Rebasing Guide - Keep your branch up-to-date
• Merge Conflicts Guide - Resolve conflicts
• Typing Guide - Python type hints
• Linting Guide - Code quality tools
  Start here: CONTRIBUTING.md

replace these with the long form link e.g.
https://github.com/hiero-ledger/hiero-sdk-python/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md

Please check all the links, thank you

🛠️ Implementation

Replace this with implementation guidance.

🧪 Testing your changes

How you test depends on the type of change.
See the testing guide for full details.

Source code changes (e.g. Python files in src/):

• Write unit tests and run them locally: uv run pytest tests/unit/<specific_file>_test.py -v
• Integration tests will run automatically when you push to your fork or open a PR

Example script changes (e.g. files in examples/):

• Run the example script to confirm it works: instructions are at the top of each script
• You will need a Hedera Portal account for testnet credentials — see environment setup
• Example changes do not require unit or integration tests

Workflow / GitHub Actions changes (e.g. files in .github/):

• Where possible, test by merging to your fork's main and simulating the scenario (e.g. creating a test issue or PR)
• Link to any test issues or PRs you created as evidence
• See the workflow testing guide

✅ Done Checklist

Before opening your PR, confirm:

• My changes address what the issue asked for — nothing more, nothing less
• I tested my changes locally (if relevant — see testing section above)
• My commits are signed: git commit -S -s -m "chore: description" — Signing guide
• I added a CHANGELOG.md entry under [Unreleased] — Changelog guide
• All CI checks pass

📋 Workflow quick reference

You have done this before — here are the links if you need them:

Step	Guide
Claim this issue	Comment /assign below
Sync with main	Rebasing guide
Open a PR and link this issue	PR guide · Linking guide
Resolve merge conflicts	Merge conflicts guide

🤖 Tips for using AI tools

Here is how to get the most out of AI tools:

• Use Pylance in VS Code to catch errors and hallucinated methods in real time
• Build your solution in small steps — add print statements or logs to confirm each piece works before moving on
• When AI suggests code, check it against existing examples and similar classes in the SDK — that is the best source of Python SDK-specific patterns. AI sometimes borrows from other SDKs.
• If AI output and SDK patterns disagree, trust the SDK

🆘 Stuck?

Beginner issues can be tricky — it is completely normal to get blocked. Here is what to do:

• Comment on this issue and describe what you have tried. A maintainer will respond.
• Ask on Discord in #hiero-python-sdk for quick questions.
• Join Office Hours (Wednesdays, 2pm UTC) for live, hands-on help with a maintainer — screen sharing welcome.

Do not spend more than 30 minutes blocked without asking. Asking good questions is a skill too.

📚 Resources

Project references:

• Project structure
• CONTRIBUTING.md
• Browse closed beginner PRs — see how others did it

Python references:

• Python official docs
• Data model (dunder methods)
• Type hints

[github-actions]

@coderabbitai plan

[Pradeepbeleri]

/assign

[Pradeepbeleri]

hi @exploreriii , I see this is marked as a duplicate. Should I go ahead and work on this one, or should I move over ?

[manishdait]

hi @exploreriii , I see this is marked as a duplicate. Should I go ahead and work on this one, or should I move over ?

@Pradeepbeleri, You can start work on this

[exploreriii]

Hi @Pradeepbeleri sorry for trying to fix your PR and it going wrong - have now had to open up my own version as was impossible to retain your signing
Would like to push ahead with this soon as it is impacting our front page docs

[OnlyTerp]

I'd like to work on this. /assign

[github-actions]

👋 Hi @roberthallers! Thanks for your interest in contributing 💡

Before taking on a beginner issue, we ask contributors to complete at least one Good First Issue to get familiar with the workflow.

👉 Find a Good First Issue here

Please try a GFI first, then come back — we’ll be happy to assign this! 😊