Firmware

See also Dan Gisselquist's rules for FPGA development.

Use free and open source IP only. IP must be compatible with both the GPL v3.0 and the CERN OHL-v2-S.
Stick to Verilog 2005. F4PGA will accept SystemVerilog but yosys sometimes synthesizes it incorrectly.
Do not use parameters that are calculated from other parameters (yosys will not parse them correctly). Use m4 macros instead.
Do not use Verilog macros. Use m4.
Do all code and test generation in Makefiles.
Simulate every module, even the trivial ones using Verilator. Simulation must be simulatable with open-source software (Verilator is preferred, but Icarus Verilog and similar are fine). Put test code in the same directory as the Verilog module, unless the Verilog module is external.
Synthesize and verify large modules independently on hardware using the LiteX SoC generator. Put the generator source code (along with the hardware test driver) in the repository.
Write only synthesizable verilog (except for direct test-bench code), even for modules that will not be synthesized.
Dump traces using .fst format.
Use only one clock.
Only transition on the positive edge of the system clock.
Do not use asynchronous resets.
Don't write Wishbone bus code in Verilog modules. LiteX automatically takes care of connecting modules together and assigning each register a memory location.
Keep all Verilog as generic as possible.
Always initialize registers.

Software

Use free and open source libraries only. All libraries must be compatible with the GNU GPL v3.0.
Do not dynamically allocate memory.
Use the SEI CERT C Coding Standard as a guideline.
Use the Linux kernel style guide as a guideline (many parts of it are not relevant for this project).
Try to offload as much processing as possible to the computer.