Contributing to a GitHub repository

Contributing to a GitHub repository#

In this activity we will learn how to contribute to an existing project to which we don’t have push access. To do this, will “fork” the course website, edit one of the files, push changes to GitHub, and open a pull request.

Note

In this workflow, projects don’t have to worry about adding users as collaborators to give them push access.

Fork, clone, and branch#

  • To begin this activity, go to the course website and click the Fork button in the top right. Leave everything as is on the next page and click Create fork. When we do this, GitHub will make a copy of the project that lives in our namespace that we can push to.

  • Clone this new remote repository locally by running:

git clone git@github.com:<username>/gds-applications-site.git

Note

Where <username> is your GitHub username.

  • Create a new branch by running:

git checkout -b suggested_edit

Make a change#

Make a change on the course website. Don’t worry, you can’t break anything.

  • At the very least, add your name to the add-name.md file in book/activities/contribution/(I will delete this file at the end of the activity).

  • But, if you can find a spelling or grammatical error, I would be very appreciative - I know there are many!

  • Alternatively, you could make a comment about a part of a lecture/activity/assignment you liked or disliked.

Commit and push#

Once you have made your changes, commit your changes and push your branch to your remote repository.

git commit -a -m "edit"
git push --set-upstream origin suggested_edit

Submit a pull request#

  • Go to your repository in GitHub.com and click Compare & pull request.

  • Title your pull request and add a description. It is almost always worthwhile to put some effort into this, since a good description helps the owner of the original project determine what you were trying to do.

  • Click Create pull request

That’s it, we have submitted our first pull request. I will now review your changes and decide whether to accept them or not.

  • Now we can clean up by running:

git checkout main
git branch -d suggested_edit

Receive a pull request#

We have provided some edits on your README.md in your final project repository and submitted a pull request. Now it is your turn to incorporate our pull request.

  • Click pull requests from the top menu of your final project repository and then on the pull request that was opened by JohnnyRyan1

  • Review the pull request by clicking on Commits and add a comment (without approving)

  • Let’s assume that my edits were useful (you can delete them later). Click Merge pull request and Confirm merge.

  • Download the changes locally by running:

git pull

  • Confirm that the changes we made have been incorporated into the README.md file.

Important

Take a screenshot to confirm that my pull request has been successfully closed and submit as a pdf to Canvas.