Software Architect's Handbook

Providing a README file

A good README file should be made available for all projects within an organization. It allows developers to review the steps required to set up an environment. The README file should include the following:

• A brief description of the software project
• Instructions indicating what other software, such as development tools, need to be installed; this includes the location of setup files for the software that needs to be installed and any license keys or other information required for the installation
• Any special configuration that is necessary, such as how to point the application to a particular database
• Information on how to connect to version control in order to perform operations such as getting the latest codebase ...