Documentation Files That Should be in your Python Package Repository#

In this section of the Python packaging guide, we review all of the files that you should have in your Python package repository. Your Python package should, at a minimum have the following files:

The files mentions above (README, Code of Conduct, license file, etc) are used as a measure of package community health on many online platforms. Below, you can see an example how GitHub evaluates community health. This community health link is available for all GitHub repositories.

Image showing that the MovingPandas GitHub repository community health page with green checks next to each file including a description, README, code of conduct, contributing, license and issue templates. Note that Security policy has a yellow circle next to it as that is missing from the repo.

GitHub community health looks for a readme file among other elements when it evaluates the community level health of your repository. This example is from the MovingPandas GitHub repo (screen shot taken Nov 23 2022)#

Snyk is another well-known company that keeps tabs on package health. Below you can see a similar evaluation of files in the GitHub repo as a measure of community health.

Screenshot of the Snyk page for movingpandas. It shows that the repository has a README file, contributing file, code of conduct. It also shows that it has 30 contributors and no funding. The package health score is 78/100.

Screenshot showing SNYK package health for moving pandas. Notice both platforms look for a README file. (screen shot taken Nov 23 2022)#