How to build a web application

I have had many debates on the best ways to build web applications and I have some strong opinions about it. However, some smart people have already come up with some guidelines that I think mirror my opinions pretty closely so I'm noting them here for future reference.

The Twelve-Factor App

The Twelve-Factor App describes what I believe are some good recommendations for building a mature web application. I don't think you need to follow all of these recommendations for every web application but as you grow in size, developers, and maturity you should probably be following them pretty closely.

Minimum CD

Minimum Continuous Deployment describes a similar set of guidelines but with a focus on continuous deployment. I am actually not a huge fan of trunk-based development, but that being said I still think you should not stray too far from trunk-based development. I think stressing a rigid requirement to deploy daily is a bit much, but I think using short-lived feature branches and a simple gitflow model can be a good compromise that still allows for a good release cadence.