I work a lot of cows in other people corrals. Side money since I quit the payroll job. Most set-ups use a form of tub or crowd gate. Do your homework on that. A sweep can be great or something you hate. The quickest way I have found to make a crowd gate worthless is to have the alley on 1 side and you on the other. They just want to stand there and look at you.
Doesn't have to be fancy, I might grab a picture of a quick and dirty version that is honestly quite good. have to wait for the rain to stop though.
Chamfer corners they are likely to bunch up in to a 45. a 4ft pc of horse panel will do that, doesn't have to be nice, you just don't want them to get a leg through and injured.
I like no-backs. At this point I'ld like more than 1, From the top. The more times you have to load a cow into the alley, the less she will like the alley in the future.
You can't have to many pens, and a way to sort after the headgate is a plus whether it's a sort pen or return to holding pen. You just don't want them back out into the field.
I prefer an open side corral, if 1 balks, I can walk quickly down the side and as I get close she moves forward. Real calm cows won't pay much attention to you doing that, but beating them won't help either.
If you are doing feeders/stockers and are planning to utilize small hot wire pastures. Have a way to put what ever hot wire you are using offset on the inside of the holding pen to break them to electricity, or they will just walk through it later.
Anytime you kick a cow out of the trailer the first thing she will do is check the fence to see how big her pasture is. Yearlings are good about finding bad spots and being gone the next morning. I'ld have a pen big enough to feed and water in for 2-3 days. Then work them and kick them out. Less stress.
Most cows won't jump a 5ft corral. On a 6ft corral though, they can't get their head over, so they won't even try.
Try not to have real large pens. I have a holding pen here that is 32x 80 I think. I'ld be better off if it was cut in half. The more room to run the more worked up they can get.
A good headgate is worth the money. Most people here run preiferts. Hard to find a fault with that.