Simple Git Workflow guide

Getting the code

Visual Git Reference

• Fork the mithi/mithi-repository repository to your own account using the fork button on the top-right of the GitHub page.
• Clone your repository ie:
  • git clone git@github.com:username/mithi-repository.git
  • git clone https://github.com/username/mithi-repository.git
• Inside the directory, add upstream, ie:
  • git remote add upstream git@github.com:mithi/mithi-repository.git
  • git remote add upstream https://github.com/mithi/mithi-repository.git

Working on the code

• git checkout master
• Create a branch: git branch my-branch-name
• Check out the branch: git checkout my-branch-name
• Do your work and commit it to the branch
• Make smaller commits rather than larger and don't commit in one commit things that are not logically connected
• Squash commits it the commits are too small to prevent polluting the commit history
• You can push your work to GitHub as often as you like: git push origin my-branch-name

Creating a pull request

• Make sure that you committed all the work to your my-branch-name branch
• Update your branch from upstream one last time
• Push all the patches to GitHub: git push origin my-branch-name
• Create a pull request against mithi/mithi-repository using the web interface in your account
• If you have forgotten to get all the latest changes from upstream before pushing to your remote branch then you would see a message on github in the pull request about 'This branch is out-of-date with the base branch'. To fix, follow instructions on rebasing your local branch (below.) Then you have to force push to your remote branch (Blog Link): git push origin my-work --force
• Wait for the request to be reviewed
• If changes are requested, make the changes, commit them to your my-branch-name branch, and push the new commits to GitHub: git push origin my-work
• Allow changes by maintainers to your pull request how?
• Repeat until the request is merged (person merging should choose 'Rebase and Merge')
• Delete the branch when merged git branch -D my-work

Updating your repository with upstream changes

If somebody else's (or yours) changes were merged to the main repo and you want your local repo to reflect them, do:

• Fetch the changes from upstream: git fetch
• Go to your local master branch: git checkout master
• Rebase it: git rebase upstream/master
• Push your local master to your GitHub: git push origin master

Please avoid doing git pull, having fetch & rebase workflow results in a more readable history.

You can and probably should update your current work branch too to avoid merge conflicts in your future pull request:

• Checkout the branch: git checkout my-work
• Rebase against your master: git rebase master
• Work as before