The Perfect GitHub Profile

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 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.