This is a list of things I often trot out as things you should do from the start in a project. It isn't polished and by no means complete but I reference it frequently.

• Linting - make it automatic
• Timezone aware dates / times everywhere, always
• Build early, build often
• Test early, test often
• Release early, release often
• Your first environment should be your test environment,
  • Don't let it turn into production
• Test environments should not contain production data
• Make local dev / running / testing easy
• How do you know you aren’t sending data out of production?
• Use containers
• Use IaC / declarative infra
• Use environment variables
• Have a secrets management strategy from the start, even if you have to change it later
• Logs, where are they?
• How do you know you’re down?
• Git.Ops.
• Have a data migration plan before you need it
• Fix your fucking tests
• Don’t start with passwords; use modern, phishing resistant auth from the start
• Pin dependencies
  • Automate updating dependencies