Learning about the README file

The README file is used to provide information about your project. Its content is automatically shown on the front page of your repository, so it is always a good idea to provide one file.

GitHub checks whether the README file comes with an extension; if it is supported for rendering, it automatically gets formatted according to its implementation.

For example, a README file can have a .md extension that stands for markdown, a .rst extension that stands for restructured text, and a .adoc extension that stands for AsciiDoc.

If the extension is not supported, then GitHub treats it like a regular text file and no formatting is done.

For a list of supported markups, go to https://github.com/github/markup#markups.