OSS Project Checklist

A copy of the below checklist could be obtained from https://github.com/scriptnull/oss-checklist (Help us make it better!)

Pre-checks

• Able to explain your project in a tweet ?
• Choose a name for the project
• Check if domain name / App name is available ?
• List and learn tools required for the project
• Prepare mock-up and one page design document, if needed to explain to collaborators
• List previous / similar implementations and learn from them
• Start a blog post to document the journey ( if time permits ) Mention idea + helpful resources.
• Ask if project could be solved in a modular way by dividing into sub-problems and creating a separate project for the sub-problems.

Project Creation

• Create a Repository in any of the Source Control Management sites
  • Github ( Free public repos )
  • Gitlab ( Free public and private repos + CI + docker registry )
  • Bitbucket ( Free public and private repos )
• Create a README.md (check below for more)
• Create a LICENSE file (choose one before)
• Create a CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
• Create a CONTRIBUTING.md
• Create a .gitignore
• Create Gitter chatroom (if needed)

README.md Checklist

• Title
• Logo
• Badges
• Description
• Prerequisite for using software ( if any )
• Install
• Example Usage
• Screenshots and GIFs
  • For command line apps, try asciinema
  • For mac GUI screenshots, use [Cmd+Shift+3] or [Cmd+Shift+4] or [Cmd+Shift+4,SpaceBar]
  • For mac GUI GIF creation, try kap
  • For Ubuntu GUI Screenshots, use [Shift+PrintScr] or Shutter
  • For Ubuntu GUI GIF creation, try silentcast
• Benchmarks
• Contributors
• Backers and Sponsors
• Attributions ( mention 3rd party libs used etc. )
• Security
  • Post maintainer's PGP fingerprint for reporting security vulnerabilities
  • Share keybase profile for making the reporting process easier.

Coding Phase

• Install required developer tools
  • Compiler
  • Linter
  • Formatter
  • Build Tool
  • Other
• Basic code complete
• Write tests and keep watch on code coverage
• Setup CI
  • AppVeyor - CI/CD for Windows developers.
  • CircleCI - Docker-based building with support of customized workflows.
  • Codefresh - Docker-native CI/CD.
  • Codeship - Continuous integration, delivery, and deployment.
  • continuousphp - CI/CD for PHP applications.
  • DeployHQ - Deployment automation.
  • Sauce Labs - Cross-browser testing, Selenium testing, and mobile testing.
  • Semaphore - Fast automated CI/CD.
  • Shippable - DevOps automation.
  • Travis-CI - Automated CI/CD for Open Source.
• Host the documentation of the code somewhere if the project is a software library
• Use Github issues ( or other tools ) for tracking backlogs
• Encourage OSS culture by having labels like "help wanted" "easy-to-contribute" etc.
• Contribute to other OSS projects on which the current project is dependent on ( if possible )
  • File bug reports
  • Improve docs
  • Suggest feature
  • Learn by reading code

Release Phase

• Package software in CI or manually in local
• Publish in registries (npm, docker hub etc.) or markets (Android store, App Store etc.)
• Create the release version, description, link for downloading the release etc. in release page ( example: Github release page)

Post-release

• Publish the blog post
• Tweet
• Hackernews
• Product Hunt
• Send PR to awesome-* github repository
• Reddit
• Hashnode
• Linkedin
• Edit Wikipedia pages (if related)
• Prepare slides and give talks (if possible)

🚨 You need to enable Continuous Integration on all branches of this repository. 🚨

To enable Greenkeeper, you need to make sure that a commit status is reported on all branches. This is required by Greenkeeper because it uses your CI build statuses to figure out when to notify you about breaking changes.

Since we didn’t receive a CI status on the greenkeeper/initial branch, it’s possible that you don’t have CI set up yet. We recommend using Travis CI, but Greenkeeper will work with every other CI service as well.

If you have already set up a CI for this repository, you might need to check how it’s configured. Make sure it is set to run on all new branches. If you don’t want it to run on absolutely every branch, you can whitelist branches starting with greenkeeper/.

Once you have installed and configured CI on this repository correctly, you’ll need to re-trigger Greenkeeper’s initial pull request. To do this, please delete the greenkeeper/initial branch in this repository, and then remove and re-add this repository to the Greenkeeper App’s white list on Github. You'll find this list on your repo or organization’s settings page, under Installed GitHub Apps.