![github desktop fork github desktop fork](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NEONScience/NEON-Data-Skills/dev-aten/graphics/reproducible-science/git-push-pr.png)
You can still create a branch off it, it's just not automatic. However, at least using the command-line git tools, checking out a remote branch (whether it's "origin/3.x" or "upstream/3.x") is a temporary operation – it doesn't automatically create a local branch that you can work on, it only checks out a "detached" commit. to track someone else's development fork.) (This is more general than just "upstream", you can configure any number of remotes, e.g.
#GITHUB DESKTOP FORK FULL#
Your desktop repo has full copies of all branches from the upstream repo (as of the last fetch) and you can check out their commits, create local branches off them, merge or cherry-pick individual commits into a local branch, etc.
![github desktop fork github desktop fork](https://mac-cdn.softpedia.com/screenshots/GitHub_17.png)
If the upstream repo has some commits ahead of my fork on the 3.x branch and I click on upstream/3.x, does my working directory somehow gain the changes from those upstream commits? For example, you might integrate the newest upstream changes by merging "upstream/3.x" into your local "3.x", then push to your GitHub fork's "origin/3.x". Git repositories aren't limited to having a single URL to push/pull from – it is very common to have two when working with forks, and to directly fetch commits and branches from both. (Neither the "origin/" branches nor "upstream/" ones are actually local to the repo that GH Desktop is showing they're only locally cached copies of remote branches.) The cloned repository that you have on your desktop is fully separate from the fork that you have on GitHub – it has its own branches and everything. You're not only working on a fork you're working on a fork of the fork. How is it possible that I could switch to a branch on the upstream repo if I'm working on a fork? Diverging is expected, so the branches downloaded from a remote repository are always namespaced with "reponame/", while Hg's docs imply that a diverged bookmark is supposed to be dealt with quickly.) Though it seems that Git branches aren't kept as strictly in sync with the remote repository as Hg bookmarks are. And similarly, when you create a new local branch off "master", it's just creating a second bookmark that points to the same commit as "master". branch) is updated to point to them, so now both the local and remote bookmarks independently point to the same commit. (In fact, that's what happens when you push to GitHub – first the commits are uploaded, and then the remote repository's "main" or "master" bookmark (i.e. They're not immutably attached to commits but act as flexible pointers to some commit ID (see Mercurial's Bookmarks docs), so it is entirely possible for several repositories to have their own bookmarks pointing to the same commit.
![github desktop fork github desktop fork](https://www.classicpress.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/step1-fork1.png)
Git branches work like Mercurial's bookmarks.
#GITHUB DESKTOP FORK HOW TO#
When creating your public repository from a fork of someone's project, make sure to include a license file that determines how you want your project to be shared with others.įor more information on open source, specifically how to create and grow an open source project, we've created Open Source Guides that will help you foster a healthy open source community by recommending best practices for creating and maintaining repositories for your open source project.(but bear in mind I come from a Mercurial background so maybe I'm not fully understanding Git's branches - I think they exist outside the version control somehow?). Use someone else's project as a starting point for your own idea.Īt the heart of open source is the idea that by sharing code, we can make better, more reliable software. If the project owner likes your work, they might pull your fix into the original repository!
![github desktop fork github desktop fork](https://i.stack.imgur.com/GkT0G.png)
Submit a pull request to the project owner. Rather than logging an issue for a bug you've found, you can: Propose changes to someone else's projectĪ great example of using forks to propose changes is for bug fixes. Most commonly, forks are used to either propose changes to someone else's project or to use someone else's project as a starting point for your own idea. Forking a repository allows you to freely experiment with changes without affecting the original project. Here is the official explanation of the fork a repo:Ī fork is a copy of a repository.