Having a single point of entry to the module

init.pp should be the single entry point for the module. In this way, someone reviewing the documentation in particular, as well as the code in init.pp, can have a complete overview of the module's behavior.

If you've used encapsulation effectively and used descriptive class names, you can get a very good sense just by looking at init.pp of how the module actually manages the software.

Ideally, you can use your module with a simple include statement, as follows:

include mymodule

You can also use it with the use of a class declaration, as follows:

class {'mymodule':
  myparam => false,
}

The Apache virtual directory style of configuring a number of defined types would be the third way to use your new module:

mymodule::mydefine {‘define1':
  myotherparam => false,
}

The anti-pattern to this recommendation would be to have a number of classes other than init.pp and your defined types with parameters expecting to be set.