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New to working with a team on git and github? Start here

TL;DR Don't commit to main, always use a branch, then create a pull request

GUI vs Command Line

Although it's tempting to use the GUI on github.com or on the github desktop app, the sooner you start using the command line for all git commands, the sooner you will be comfortable with it. Believe it or not, you actually have more control when using the command line and are able to do more advanced git commands. So it might be intimidating at first, but in the long run it will be faster and easier.

Suggested Tools

  • Github desktop (or similar app for read-only visualization)
  • iTerm (for command line git operations)

Local vs Remote

  • Local is your computer. You will use the command line to navigate between folders and projects, and run git commands.
  • Remote is github.com. Everyone on your team has access to all code and branches there.
  • To make sure that your local is connected to the remote, run git remote -v in the command line, and it should show something similar to
origin	https://github.com/jwicksnin/docs.git (fetch)
origin	https://github.com/jwicksnin/docs.git (push)

Branches

  • Your repo has one branch automatically: main
  • Never commit to main - always use a branch
  • You can see which branches are available locally by running git branch
  • In order to create a new branch, run git checkout -b your-new-branch-name-here
  • Your branch name should have no spaces and use - or _ or camelCase
  • Make all of your commits on your branch (not main), and when your feature is done, you can create a PR. See the Pull Requests section below.

Rebase and Merge

Why to use Rebase locally

  • Cleaner and understandable git history
  • Easier to reason about when merging PRs
  • To learn more about rebasing and merging, see this article

Workflow

  1. On your local branch, not main, make your commits for your feature

  2. If you need the most recent changes on main (for example, your teammate merged some code that your branch depends on, or you are ready to create a PR), run the following

    git checkout main
git pull origin main

    Now your local main is up to date with the remote

    git checkout your-local-branch
git rebase main

    This "replays" your branch's commits on top of what is in main

  3. If you run into merge conflicts, don't panic. This is normal and usually easier to resolve than it seems. And VS Code makes it easy to choose which code to keep during a merge conflict. You can search your codebase for >>>>> and it will find all the merge conflicts. VS Code will label each conflict and you can remove the change you don't want.

  4. Once all the merge conflicts are resolved and there are no more >>>>> in your codebase, you can run the following

    git add .
git rebase --continue

    This updates your commit with the changes from main. You might have multiple merge conflicts when rebasing onto main, and that is ok. Each one is associated with a different commit that you are replaying on top of main.

  5. One you have replayed all your commits on top of main, you can run git log and you will see all your commits, followed by all the commits on main.

  6. Now you have the most recent changes in main on your local branch and can continue working or create a PR when you're ready.

Pull Requests (PRs)

  1. See Branches and Rebase and Merge above

  2. Once your local branch has all of your feature changes and you have rebased onto main, you are ready to create a PR

  3. In your local branch, run git push origin your-new-branch which pushes your local branch to the remote.

  4. Go to github.com and select Pull Requests. You can select your-new-branch to be merged into main. Create the PR and assign any of your teammates to review it.

  5. Once your teammate has reviewed and approved your PR, go to your PR on github.com and merge your branch into main. If it objects that your banch is X commits behind main, you will need to follow the process under Rebase and Merge above to get all the changes in main into your branch, then push to the remote again.

  6. Once your PR is merged, update your local repo by running

    git checkout main
git pull origin main

    Your local main branch is always a copy of what is on the remote. If there are any issues when pulling it down, you should check if you have any local changes on main and remove them.