That's something that's highly determined by local custom. Around here they don't want *ANY* connections made. There should not power present so "capping" off is silly.

For us they just wanted to see 6" of cable sticking out of the box. No connections, no stripping of wire and certainly no switches or outlets.

Yep, here it's like hedricus says...at least 6" wire hanging out and if you're using metal boxes they want to see the ground tail coming off the box. What they're looking for is the wire being secured, proper bushings on metal studs or plates on bored holes where that is requierd, etc...