# The Perfect GitHub Profile

> Tips for a presentable GitHub profile: contribute to open source you already use, keep repositories organized, write a real README, and pick a license.

- HTML version: https://tiagodanin.com/post/the-perfect-github-profile/
- Site index for AI assistants: https://tiagodanin.com/llms.txt

- Date: 2018-11
- Language: English
- Tags: GitHub, Tutorial, Career, Article
- Originally published at: https://dev.to/tiagodanin/o-perfil-perfeito-no-github-5cco

I'll give some tips on how to create a presentable profile on GitHub.

- Get involved in open source communities and contribute to them. The best projects to contribute to are the ones you use or are already familiar with — tools, packages, apps, and even games.
- Keep your repositories organized.
- Don't use the same repository to store two different projects.
- Create a README — it must have at minimum the software description and installation and usage instructions.
- Have a universal standard for organizing the topics in your README (you'll use them in other projects as a starting point).
- For repositories with a "package.json" file, I recommend using Package-Json-to-Readme or Gen-README as a README starting point.
- Make commits that describe the change made (nothing like "Update X.js" or "up").
- Choose a license — the site choosealicense.com can help you with that.
- Don't put too many files in the root — ideally you'd use subdirectories to organize files.
- Use "badges" to show project status. There are many of these on the site shields.io.
- Whenever possible, create tests.
- Use CI (Continuous Integration) tools to build and run tests. I recommend using Travis CI — its integration with GitHub is perfect and it even has "badges".
- Have a website for your project, so it's easier to find it outside of GitHub. If you don't want to go through the trouble of creating one from scratch, use GitHub Pages.
- Separate your forks into an organization. Tip: You can keep them always updated using the [Pull](https://github.com/apps/pull) bot.
- Don't take shortcuts :) — remember that the whole world will see your code.
- Avoid taking too long to respond to issues or pull requests.
- Have a presentable profile photo and a quick description.

Other suggestions at [github.com/training-center/forum/issues/23](https://github.com/training-center/forum/issues/23).

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Published by Tiago Danin. Free to quote with attribution and a link to https://tiagodanin.com.