GitHub project README files

GitHub has a few special files that provide a nice introduction to a project for the developer audience. Additionally, other users might find these pages via search engines or in filing bugs on many of our websites. So it is important to provide some details about the project, the underlying software it might be marketing and other way finding helps.

README.md

The README.md is the key file on GitHub that most users will see as it is rendered at the bottom of the repo’s code listing. This is the main file that people might find via search engines as well.

Here is an annotated example of a good file.

The title

The title should be simple but explain what the repo is for. If possible, it should include a small logo of the product, or use the Ubuntu or Canonical word mark.

Examples

ubuntu.com codebase

snapcraft.io snapcraft.io codebase

Markdown


# ![ubuntu](https://assets.ubuntu.com/v1/9f61b97f-logo-ubuntu.svg "Ubuntu").com codebase



# ![snapcraft.io](upload://oLOIC4viUeH4wjetagRA3j22tje.png "Snapcraft") snapcraft.io codebase

Badges

Badges are optional, but useful to show others the health of the project. It is important to keep these up to date, but most of the CI tools we use will have them.

Example

Markdown


[![CircleCI build status](https://circleci.com/gh/canonical-web-and-design/ubuntu.com.svg?style=shield)](https://circleci.com/gh/canonical-web-and-design/ubuntu.com) [![Code coverage](https://codecov.io/gh/canonical-web-and-design/ubuntu.com/branch/master/graph/badge.svg)](https://codecov.io/gh/canonical-web-and-design/ubuntu.com)

Description

The description of the project is first and most important thing a visitor will read. It should tell them exactly what the repo is and what the underlying product is. It gives us a chance to tell users:

  • What the product the website is about

  • Where to see the site the repo creates

  • Who made the site and what tools we use to build it

Be proud, be concise and offer links.

Examples

ubuntu.com’s description

Ubuntu is an open source software operating system that runs from the desktop, to the cloud, to all your internet connected things. Ubuntu.com is the website that helps people learn about, download and get started with Ubuntu. This repo is the codebase and content for the ubuntu.com website.

The site is largely maintained by the Web and Design team at Canonical. It is a simple, database-less, informational website project based on Flask and hosted on a Charmed Kubernetes cluster.

snapcraft.io’s description

Snaps are applications packaged with all their dependencies to run on all popular Linux distributions from a single build. They update automatically and roll back gracefully. This repo is the application for the snapcraft.io website.

If you are interested in Snaps, Snapping and Snapcraft, there is an active discourse forum that we encourage developers to join.

The site is largely maintained by the Web and Design team at Canonical. It is a stateless website project based on Flask and hosted on a Charmed Kubernetes cluster.

Markdown


Ubuntu is an open source software operating system that runs from the desktop, to the cloud, to all your internet connected things. [Ubuntu.com](https://ubuntu.com) is the website that helps people learn about, download and get started with Ubuntu. This repo is the codebase and content for the [ubuntu.com](https://ubuntu.com) website.

The site is largely maintained by the [Web and Design team](https://ubuntu.com/blog/topics/design) at [Canonical](https://canonical.com). It is a simple, database-less, informational website project based on [Flask](https://flask.palletsprojects.com/en/1.1.x/) and hosted on a [Charmed Kubernetes](https://ubuntu.com/kubernetes) cluster.

Bugs and issues

This section can do three important things:

  1. Welcome feedback as well as bug reports

  2. Suggest people actually offer code in the form of a Pull request

  3. If the bug is on the product itself, how to find the bug tracker for the underlying product, rather than misfile on the website

Example

ubuntu.com’s ‘Bugs and issues’ section

Bugs and issues

If you have found a bug on the site or have an idea for a new feature, feel free to create a new issue, or suggest a fix by creating a pull request. You can also find a link to create issues in the footer of every page of the site itself.
If you have found a bug in the Ubuntu OS itself, the please file it here.

snapcraft.io’s ‘Bugs and issues’ section

Bugs and issues

If you have found a bug on the site or have an idea for a > new feature, feel free to [create a new issue](https://> github.com/canonical-web-and-design/snapcraft.io/issues/> new), or suggest a fix by [creating a pull request](https://> help.github.com/articles/creating-a-pull-request/). You can > also find a link to create issues in the footer of every > page of the site itself.

Bugs in snaps and tools

If you have found a bug elsewhere in the snap world:

  • For issues with an individual snap - you can run snap > info and use the contact information to find where you > can get help.
  • In the snapcraft tool - that builds and publishes > snaps, file it here
  • In Snapd, the daemon that manages snaps on the client, > file it here

Markdown


## Bugs and issues

If you have found a bug on the site or have an idea for a new feature, feel free to [create a new issue](https://github.com/canonical-web-and-design/ubuntu.com/issues/new), or suggest a fix by [creating a pull request](https://help.github.com/articles/creating-a-pull-request/). You can also find a link to create issues in the footer of every page of the site itself.

If you have found a bug in the Ubuntu OS itself, the please file it [here](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/).

Local development section

It is useful to help users who might provide a pull request or even for our own developers to know how to run the site locally. For the README only include the basic overview. If it is any more complicated, please provide a HACKING file for more details. A good example is on the ubuntu.com repo and another on the snapcraft.io repo.

Example

Local development

The simplest way to run the site locally is to first install Docker (on Linux you may need to add your user to the docker group), and then use the ./run script:
./run

Once the containers are setup, you can visit http://127.0.0.1:8001 in your browser.
For more detailed local development instructions, see HACKING.md.


## Local development

The simplest way to run the site locally is to first [install Docker](https://docs.docker.com/engine/installation/) (on Linux you may need to [add your user to the `docker` group](https://docs.docker.com/engine/installation/linux/linux-postinstall/)), and then use the `./run` script:

```bash

./run

```

Once the containers are setup, you can visit http://127.0.0.1:8001 in your browser.

For more detailed local development instructions, see HACKING.md.

License section

This is the same for all our repos. Code is licensed under LGPLv3 and content under reative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. You can just borrow this code.


## License

The content of this project is licensed under the [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/), and the underlying code used to format and display that content is licensed under the [LGPLv3](http://opensource.org/licenses/lgpl-3.0.html) by [Canonical Ltd](http://www.canonical.com/).

With ♥ from Canonical

Last updated 9 months ago.

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