17 things to do before launching your open source product

Open-sourcing my last app took waayy longer than I expected. Thankfully, I wrote everything I did down. Hopefully this list will save you some headaches during your PH launch prep. Part I: Cleanup the repo 1. Remove Sensitive Commits 2. Remove large files from git 3. Prevent secrets and large files 4. Reduce commits 5. Remove unused code 6. Fix CI 7. Create an official release 8. Fix security vulnerabilities 9. Update dependencies Part II: Document 10. Add a LICENSE 11. Update README.md 12. Add CONTRIBUTING.MD and CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md 13. Write Docs 14. Create issue templates 15. Manual Test Part III: Share 16. Share directly (friends, email list) 17. Share indirectly (Reddit, Twitter, X, LinkedIn, etc) Launch on Product Hunt! The full checklist contains commands and rationales behind each point: https://www.compasscalendar.com/post/open-source-launch-checklist