Good cookies are made with good cookie cutters: Use research software templates to kick-start your research software.

There are many guidelines of good practices for developing research software. Most of them are based in similar principles: version control, licences, testing, citation, documentation, etc. But often what you really need is to know how they are implemented in your favourite programming language. Even better: someone creates the basic structure for you, and you can focus on filling in the details. This is where using Templates can help you getting started with your research software. For example, adding your preferred licence, creating a citation file, and setting up test infrastructure, etc. You still need to add your details to the citation file, write tests, etc. but templates provide you a good starting point. For example, the Netherlands eScience Center has a Python Template, which sets up the basic structure of a Python package. We are currently working on a similar template for Julia. In this talk we want to share our templates and invite others to use and contribute to them. We'll also collect ideas on how to continue growing these templates in terms of • Adoption: who uses and maintains them • Scope: how they are used • Content: which good practices are currently implemented and what else we can add Additionally, we want to learn about other similar templates that are used in the RSE community. Do you use software templates to build your research software? Would you like to improve how software templates are used? Join this session and help us build a better research software template ecosystem! A recording of this session is available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/HWr1MX5J8SA