How do you handle - starter code is not a template repository??

[lwasser]

Is this setting accessible from the github api? i'm guessing it may not be but worth looking or i can ask nathaniel? i'll email him now about it.

[lwasser]

UPDATE: Nathaniel told me that this feature is "under preview"
As it's a relatively new GitHub feature, the API is available under preview: https://developer.github.com/v3/repos/#edit

By using the preview header, you'll be able to edit a repository to be a template, create a new repo as a template, and check if a repository is a template. so it looks like we may be able to automate this step when we create a new template. NOTE this will only need to happen once.

@kcranston can you add this to the template functionality?

[kcranston]

Yes, we can do this. Two comments:

• will have to call the API directly (i.e. using the requests library) rather than through the github3 library that we are using for other github interaction
• preview functionality can change without notice, so we will need to be prepared for errors down the road if / when that happens

If you are ok with both of these, then I can go ahead and implement.

[lwasser]

i read that @kcranston change without notice!! yikes. and i'm guessing that because it's preview, most other packages will be slow to adapt this until it's fully released?

[kcranston]

Here are the pros and cons of using template repositories for github classroom:

https://classroom.github.com/help/using-template-repos-for-assignments

[lwasser]

let's hold on this for now until the api functionality has solidified

[lwasser]

If it is possible to automate this part of the process it's worth doing it. it's annoying to have to go into the repo and click t he button :) to turn on the repo as being a template. if it's not a template you can't push it to the students from what i can tell.

[lwasser]

IF this is an easy code change as this is available in the API change we may implement otherwise we will discuss further what we'll do here...