Way of Working

December 2, 2025 · View on GitHub

Introduction

This tool underpins the Way of Working framework, used to describe a consistent, high-quality approach to Software Engineering. It is intended as an opinionated approach supporting rapid development, across numerous projects, by a fungible workforce who can swap between assignments with the minimum friction.

It consists command line tool that uses a modular, plugin-based system to gain functionality, allowing for organisations to pick and choose different solutions for the same feature. Organisations can create their own gem which defines the specific plugin dependencies which form their way of working. See the Way of Working for HDI as an example.

There are subcommands that plugins hook into which enable them to add GitHub actions, configuration and other files to a project and GitHub pages outlining the tooling choice and thinking behind it.

Below is a list of plugins that have been implemented so far:

Feature	Plugin	Description
Audit	audit-github	A framework for rules to check for incorrect content and configuration of GitHub repos
Changelog	changelog-keepachangelog	Implements keepachangelog v1.1
Code Linting	code_linting-hdi	Implements a combination of MegaLinter and RuboCop built on NDRS standards
Code of Conduct	code_of_conduct-contributor_covenant	Implements Contributor Covenant v2.1
Decision Records	decision_record-madr	Implements MADR v3
Inclusive Language	inclusive_language-alex	Implements alex
Pull Request Template	pull_request_template-hdi	Implements a bespoke PR template
Versioning	versioning-semver	Implements Semantic Versioning v2.0.0

Installation

Install the gem and add to the application's Gemfile by executing:

bundle add way_of_working

If bundler is not being used to manage dependencies, install the gem by executing:

gem install way_of_working

Usage

Initialise All Components

To add all the Way of Working components to your project, run:

way_of_working init all --contact-method [CONTACT METHOD]

You will need to provide the Code of Conduct [CONTACT METHOD], usually an email address, for community leaders to receive reports of unacceptable behavior.

Help

More help on using the command line tool is found by using:

way_of_working help

Development

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rake test to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment. This RubyGem was created using bundle gem --exe way_of_working.

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install. To release a new version, update the version number in version.rb, and then run bundle exec rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and the created tag, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.

When creating plugins, the convention is to create them within the WayOfWorking and feature namespaces. E.g.