Seattle Central IT100 Group 2 Project Page

How to Use Github

1. Create a new repository

• This is where everything starts. Once you have created a user account, you can create a new repository for a software project, a specialty web page, or nearly any project you can think of.

2. Create a branch

• The Branch is where an individual member of the development team, let us say the person working on the documentation of a project, or perhaps a member of the user interface team, will copy the project into their own branches, where their work will only affect the branch itself, with the option of merging the branches into the main repository when the project nears completion. This ensures that the main project is isolated from any errors, or unforeseen bugs.

3. Make and commit changes

• This comes at the end of the merge process, where a project member will write the code, documentation, and any necessary changes, and then makes a Commit, with any proposed changes to the main branch. Note that this does not guarantee that the submitted changes will be added, only that they will be considered for inclusion in the Main branch.

4. Open a pull request

• When a developer or other team member has submitted proposed changes to be merged back into Main, a Pull Request is submitted, listing all changes in the individual branch that may, if agreed upon by the project leads, be merged fully into the Main repository.

5. Merge pull request

• This is the next step for the developer on their Branch, as they submit their changes with a request to be merged into Main.

Glossary

• Repository: "Repo" for short. Contains all files and revision histories for each project.
• Branch: Copy of the original repository. Updates to branches can be merged into the primary branch if needed.
• Clone: Copy of a repository that's located on the user's device.
• Commit: History of updates made to files in the repository. You can track down a commit by their ID.
• Fork: Copy of another user's repo to your account.
• Pull/push: Merging changes to the repo files is known as "pulling." A "push" is updating the repo files with the changes from your local copy.
• Pull requests: A request to make changes to a repo. Other users can review and suggest changes.
• Versioning: Recording and tracking the revisions made to a project in its different stages.