Now that the new directory is out, it’s time for a couple quick reminders on how the SVNSVN Short for "SubVersioN", it's the code management system used to maintain the plugins hosted on WordPress.org. It's similar to git. repositories work on WordPress. We have documentation on how SVN works here, but the information can be overwhelming.

Use readme.txt (not .MD)

A readme.md file is not the same as our readme.txt format. If you try to use one and expect everything to work right, you’ll have a bad day.

Your Stable Tag Tag Tag is one of the pre-defined taxonomies in WordPress. Users can add tags to their WordPress posts along with categories. However, while a category may cover a broad range of topics, tags are smaller in scope and focused to specific topics. Think of them as keywords used for topics discussed in a particular post. matters

This has always been the case, but it’s now more important than ever. If you say that your pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party’s stable tag is 1.2.3 but you do not have a /tags/1.2.3/ folder, your plugin will absolutely not behave as expected. If you’re not using tags folders, your stable tag should be trunk and that’s it. (But we would rather you use tags.)

Don’t use a folder for your MAIN files

Do not put your main plugin file in a subfolder of trunk, like /trunk/my-plugin/my-plugin.php as that will break downloads. You may use subfolders for included files.

The Assets folder is special

We have a dedicated folder for your plugin screenshots and banners. Want a faster, smaller, plugin? Put your assets in /assets/ and not /trunk/assets/ please. Your users will thank you. Screenshots and banner images go in that folder. It’s special. Use it wisely.

SVN is a release repository

One of the guidelines is that frequent commits to your plugin should be avoided.

Unlike GitGit Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency. Git is easy to learn and has a tiny footprint with lightning fast performance. Most modern plugin and theme development is being done with this version control system. https://git-scm.com/., our SVN repository is a release repository, not a development one. Every single commit triggers a regeneration of the zip files associated with the plugin. All the zips. That can be pretty brutal on the system. No one likes it when a plugin download breaks because the server’s down. Please be nice to our servers.

It’s okay to update your readme within reason

That said, if you need to update your readme to fix a critical public typo, do it. And if you want to update the readme to bump the version of WordPress you’ve tested up to, that’s fine too. Just keep it to the major releases. A plugin that is tested on 4.7 will show as tested up to 4.7.2 as well, after all.