This issue is just a reminder of things we could include in the next batch updates for astropy-helpers and package-template files. Feel free to add more in comments (or edit this):

• Update astropy-helpers
• Remove ez_setup.py
• Update _astropy_init.py
• Update setup.py

Notify/open issues:

• MPLBACKEND is now set to Agg, packages expecting interactive plotting should override it in .travis.yml
• update travis matrix, at least jobs with NUMPY_VERSION<1.13 and ASTROPY_VERSION=stable
• sphinx-astropy as dependency: List of things to include in next astropy-helpers/package template updates #108 (comment)
• six not to be imported from astropy but directly

Next round of issues:

• usage of _ASTROPY_SETUP_ and that whether that tries to import astropy at setup time or not Don't require astropy to be importable at setup.py time astropy#8402 (comment)

With helpers 3.2 update:

• make a note that sphinx-astropy should be listed as a dependency for building the docs.