GitHub 29 renders README.md below the file list, so it is the project's front page. Git's README was written for Sam; the new one is written for a stranger: the name and one bold sentence of purpose, badges, a one-line curl 3,008 example, a feature list, a five-command quick start, the API table, a contributing note and the license. It was committed as "Rewrite the README for visitors to the GitHub repository" and pushed; 3 shows how GitHub renders it.
The badges are linked Markdown images such as https://img.shields.io/badge/license-MIT-blue.svg 27,161 , drawn by the open-source shields.io (https://github.com/badges/shields 27,220 ) service; a build-status badge joins them in Matrices and Caching. Link to files relatively so links survive forks and renames, keep the quick start copy-and-paste runnable, and move long documentation to docs/ or GitHub Pages 29 (GitHub Pages Docs).