add pre-commit functionality and intial execution

.github/dependabot.yml

@@ -9,4 +9,3 @@ updates:
     directory: "/" # Location of package manifests
     schedule:
       interval: "weekly"
-

.pre-commit-config.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+# These checks must pass before you may commit changes
+repos:
+-   repo: https://github.com/pre-commit/pre-commit-hooks
+    rev: v2.3.0
+    hooks:
+    -   id: check-yaml
+    -   id: end-of-file-fixer
+    -   id: trailing-whitespace
+-   repo: https://github.com/psf/black
+    rev: 24.4.2
+    hooks:
+    -   id: black

CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -30,8 +30,10 @@ When you want to make changes, the best way to do that is by creating a [feature
 Code style formatting of all commits must adhere to `black --line-length 98`.
  * Please use `pylint` with this project's `.pylintrc` and `flake8` and `pydocstyle` using the project's `tox.ini` to discover suggestions for code improvement.
  Since the code isn't perfect you are free to ignore any suggestions by the linters that are unrelated to your changes. However, you are also welcome to fix those suggestions if you want ;-)
- * For C, C++ sources we prefer to use [`cpplint`](https://pypi.org/project/cpplint/) for linting and [`clang-format`](https://pypi.org/project/clang-format/) to correct code formatting.  
+ * For C, C++ sources we prefer to use [`cpplint`](https://pypi.org/project/cpplint/) for linting and [`clang-format`](https://pypi.org/project/clang-format/) to correct code formatting.
  Here too we use a line length of <= 98.
 
+ To run pre-commit hooks you may need to `pip install pre-commit` or `conda install pre-commit` and `pre-commit run --all-files` on first use.
+
 Note that most, if not all, of us do this in our free time, so sometimes you get a quick response and other times it may take longer.
 We assume that you've read GitHub's help page [regarding pull requests](https://help.github.com/articles/using-pull-requests/).