GitHub – How to Create a Pull Request Without Forking?

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Is it possible to submit a pull request if I originally cloned a repo locally rather than using the GitHub "fork" functionality??

The scenario is that I have created a local clone of a repository and made some changes. I would like to submit these back via pull request. I can create a repo on GitHub and push my changes there. Once I do that, will I be able to use the "new pull request" functionality, or will GitHub be unable to recognise that the repo is equivalent to a fork?

Best Answer

It doesn't matter when you create the fork because of the distributed nature of git, but github needs a fork in order to make the association necessary to create a pull request, and it also lets people searching your profile more easily make the association back to the original project. Without the fork, you break a lot of very helpful links.

In my local workspace, I usually like to set up one remote called upstream to more easily pull from the original, then have origin point to my fork. After you create a fork, you can use the instructions here to change your origin remote url, then just push to there like normal. That way you won't lose any of your existing history.

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GitHub Workflow – Best Practices for Organization Repositories, Issues, and Forking

Is a fork-per-developer approach appropriate in this case? It seems like it could be a little overkill. I'm not sure that we need a fork for every developer, unless we introduce developers who don't have direct push access and need all their code reviewed. In which case, we would want to institute a policy like that, for those developers only. So, which is better? All developers in a single repository, or a fork for everyone?

Depends on your team's scale, I guess. I used to work in a small team where we just had a single repo and features got their own branches within that repo. That worked just fine for us.

However, I now regularly contribute to a larger open source project where a few dozen people have access to the central repo. We still do all major development in personal repos and submit PRs for features so code can be reviewed, although bugfixes can be pushed directly. The main repo only carries master and release branches, keeping it free of clutter. Feature branches are in personal repos, so they can still be seen by others (making early PRs for them will alert others in the team that work on a feature is underway). I can recommend this workflow for any project with more than a handful of developers; the only downside to it is having to work with multiple remotes.

GitHub – How to Pull Changes from a Forked Repo Without a Request

1) To pull in somebody else's changes, first add a remote that points to their repository. For example:

git remote add soniakeys https://github.com/soniakeys/goptimize.git

Then, you can fetch those changes into your repository (this doesn't change your code, yet):

git fetch soniakeys

Finally, to merge those changes, make sure you're on your master branch and:

git merge soniakeys/master

2) To be polite, you would normally ask the author whether it's okay to pull the changes. Just because they're on a public repository doesn't necessarily mean they are ready to pull. There might be further work to do, or perhaps intellectual property issues, or whatever. However, with published changes on an open source repository, asking is not strictly required.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

GitHub Workflow – Best Practices for Organization Repositories, Issues, and Forking

GitHub – How to Pull Changes from a Forked Repo Without a Request

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