Some time ago GitHub added a feature to create our own personal README, to showcase who we are, our skills, passions and goals. A bit like a bio field, but less boring and with much more potential!

So what is README?

Readme is a form of documentation, and usually the first one read by a user of a project or an application. It contains useful information and instructions. Every project should have a well written readme, and so as we!

There are endless possibilities on how you can make your readme truly yours, but if you need some ideas to get your creative juices flowing, look at https://awesomegithubprofile.tech/ for instant inspiration.

Add personal README to your GitHub

Ok so you are ready to create your own statement. Where do you start? On Github of course.

  1. Log in to your account and click on the link to add new repository.
  2. Name your repository the same as your username. (eg. my username on GitHub is katwlodarczyk, so I have named the repo katwlodarczyk)
  3. Make sure repository is public and initialize it with README file
  4. Create a repository

Now it’s time to get creative!

Add your awesome statement following markdown rules (markdown cheat sheet here). The only limit is your imagination. Add few words about yourself, what you do, what you would like to know, links to your amazing projects, blog posts, contributions… Whatever you are proud of, show it!

Emojis, images and other decorative items is good to lighten up the document, but if it’s not your piece of cake, don’t add it only because others did. Remember, this file should tell something about YOU.

Adding badges

Here is something I had trouble with, so I thought I’d save you time browsing.

If you have spend some time on GitHub, you know them. Badges, little tiles used for various purposes of informing user about the project’s build, platform & version support, size, dependencies etc.

Those badges are created with https://shields.io/ however for someone who has never created one themselves, the site is not very helpful or informative. I was able to create some basic badges, but not the one I wanted to make (like the one you see above, with a logo). I’m not giving up that easily though, and I’ve managed to discover this awesome post by Tassia Accioly. I could paraphrase the steps here, but Tassia has explained everything so nicely, I am sending you there for instructions.

My README.md

Here is the first draft of my README.
Do you have your own or planning to create one? I’d love to know what you think about those files.

Liked this post? Share: