I kept a close eye on the DrupalCon Portland 2024 across the pond. In my opinion, the most exciting element is the announcement of the Drupal Starshot initiative, which is in summary, a Drupal 10 including carefully picked and preconfigured modules, managed using recipes.
When it comes to the production of new projects, most of the dev houses and branding agencies I’ve collaborated with use a starter project/theme. The starter theme normally includes modules like Pathauto, Webform, Drush, themes, etc. Generally, the choice of the modules, their configuration and integration within the dev-ups system depend on the web agency, its maturity and the type of projects and clients. These starter themes require an experienced Drupal developer to pick and choose suitable modules and configure them, considering scalability and ongoing maintenance and support.
Now, the basic module picking and the default configuration are done by the Starshot initiative. It’s a great strategy from the Drupal community to improve out-of-the-box functionality for less experienced freelancers, and small agencies. For larger agencies and more mature engineering teams, it’s a good indicator of the direction of back-end interface standards to follow (the authoring), and not to disconnect too much from the Drupal Starshot presets.
It’s important to note that the Starshot preset is a Drupal 10 system with preconfigured best practices. It’s still Drupal 10, meaning that dev teams that have an existing set of standards and technologies, such as front-end tech stack tools and automation, do not need to change their workflows.
Based on the module list included in the recipes, the Starshot initiative intends to improve and standardise the authoring experience. This will allow developers to focus on system-specific requirements and custom functionality.
I believe that Gin’s popularity will continue to grow, leading to faster patch releases, alongside other modules incorporated in the recipes.
I will closely follow Starshot’s journey.
https://github.com/phenaproxima/starshot-prototype