A PHP Project Checklist

Open Source Specific

• Readme
  • It should contain the "Usage" section
  • It should contain the "Installation" section
  • It should contain the "Requirements" section
  • It should contain the "Contributing" section (via CONTRIBUTING file)
  • It should contain the "Credits" if you prefer
  • It should contain the "License" if you prefer (file "LICENSE" must be present in project root)
    • GPL: If you want any modified versions of your code to be used only in open-source software
    • LGPL: If your code is designed to be a standalone component that may be included in other applications without modification
    • MIT: Allows for use and redistribution of code so long as the license and copyright are included along with it.
• Semantic Versioning (more)
• Github page (more)
• A Getting Started Document
• Continuous Integration (more)
• Bug Tracking integrated with the source control
• A style guide to keep the code consistent
• A forum for the community to get support, share ideas, etc.
• Should allow installation via composer (more)
• Auto-Generated Documentation
• Manual

PHP Project Specific

• Project Architecture Planning (decide which framework to use, which design patterns to follow: MVC, HMVC, DDD, etc)
• Automated unit tests and builds to push update to the website
• Proper folder structure such as src for source, vendor for dependencies, tests for tests, config, etc
• Coding Specific (PHP, CSS, Javascript)
  • PSR standards (more)
  • Write SOLID code (more)
    • Single Responsibility Principle
    • Open/Closed Principle
    • Liskov Substitution Principle
    • Interface Segregation Principle
    • Dependency Inversion Principle
  • Avoid STUPID code (more)
    • Singleton
    • Tight coupling
    • Untestability
    • Premature Optimization
    • Indescriptive Naming
    • Duplication
  • Monolog (psr-compliant logger)
  • Validators: CSSLint, JSHint, PHPCI, etc
  • Use SPL Exceptions (more)
  • For CSS, use preprocessor like SASS or LESS
  • Tools: Choose from Awesome PHP (more)