Principles for Quality Code

This document sets out the standard to which inter-regional software development projects in SCORE will be held. It is versioned in GitHub Releases and Issues/Bug Reports and Pull Requests are welcome.

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.

Projects MUST:

• have a README with a description of the codebases for the potential users/implementers
• explain in the README how to run, develop and build
• be developed in a public repository from the start
• provide a link to a public list of known issues and bugs
• allow non-contributors to post issues, bugs and suggested changes
• have documentation for all public APIs in the OpenAPI standard
• have a LICENCE with an Open Source Initiative designated "Popular License" or EUPL

Projects SHOULD:

• kick ass
• have functional tests
• have a high level discription for (technical) management to understand in the README
• respond to incoming issues and change suggestions within a week
• provide contributors guidelines in a CONTRIBUTING file
• set up any tests to run in a public continuous integration environment
• have test and documentation code coverage to the highest degree possible
• have documented private APIs
• use a version number compatible with Semantic Versioning
• provide documentation on privacy and security
• contain configurations for automatic deployment and provisioning through systems such as OpenShift, Docker, Ansible, CloudForge etc
• Use the GitFlow branching model

Projects MAY:

• publish a roadmap
• provide a forum or mailing list for discussion
• publish packages to relevant language specific repositories such as PyPi, Ruby Gems, NPM, Puppet Forge, etc
• provide a contribution and governance model in a GOVERNANCE file
• indicate the level of maintainance provided by whom and until when
• indicate a codebase/project status in the README that is one of: "Ideation"; "Alpha"; "Beta"; "Production"; "Archival"
• provide a list of contributors in a CONTRIBUTORS file