How to fork your own repo on Github

Forking one of your own Github repositories ought to be easy, right? After all, forking somebody else’s repo is as simple as clicking a single button! Surely you can just press that same button on your own repo?

NOPE!

If you press the Fork button on your own repo, the page will refresh and… that’s it. No error message, no suggested course of action, nothing. It turns out forking your own repo on Github is impossible, but don’t worry: following the steps below will get you the next best thing.

1. Create a New Repo On Github

First, go to github.com and create a new repository. This will contain our fork when we’re done. I’ll refer to this repo as “fork-repo”, with the original being “orig-repo”.

Make sure you don’t check the box for “Initialize this repository with a README”. You’ll see why in Step 4!

2. Clone the New Repo Locally

Next, make a local copy of the blank repo we just made. In Terminal, cd to the base directory you want to keep the fork in and then type the following:

git clone https://github.com/YourUsernameHere/fork-repo.git

3. Add an Upstream Remote

We’ll now add an upstream remote pointing at the original repo. This will allow us to pull files from the original repo, both now and in the future if we wish. Make sure you navigate to the directory you cloned the fork repo into first!

cd fork-repo
git remote add upstream https://github.com/YourUsernameHere/orig-repo.git

4. Pull From the Original Repo

Now we can pull all the files from our original repo into the fork, like so:

git pull upstream master

Your fork directory should now be identical to your original repo!

Note that if you made a README.md for the new repo (or added any other file) you may have some merge conflicts to resolve before you can go to the next step. Make the necessary changes to your files and commit to resolve the conflict.

5. Push!

You’re done! Well, locally at least. All that’s left is to push your new fork repo back up to Github:

git push origin master

Push to GitHub without entering username and password every time (Git Bash on Windows)

Today I learned… how to save my GitHub username and password so I don’t have to re-enter them every time I push something to GitHub from my Windows machine.

A bit of backstory:

I recently set up git on my Windows 7 machine using Git for Windows (mysisgit). That process went smoothly and I feel right at home in my little emulator, Git Bash, using all the same commands I already know and love from my Mac.

If you’re used to using git on a Mac and have to work on a Windows machine for whatever reason, I highly recommend mysisgit.

Credential check… every time!

Everything was going great until I pushed my changes. Every push triggered a new credentials check!

$ git push origin master
Username for 'https://github.com': xyz
Password for 'https://xyz@github.com':

I don’t want to enter my GitHub username and password every time I push something.

HTTPS vs. SSH?

So I hit the Google and found this StackOverflow question, where some helpful folks say the problem results from connecting over HTTPS instead of SSH, but GitHub’s help documentation recommends connecting over HTTPS, not SSH.

I’m hesitant to disobey the word of GitHub, so instead of relying on SSH, I followed GitHub’s instructions to use a credentials helper.

Credentials Helper Setup

However… GitHub’s explanation of how to cache your password with the credentials helper aren’t very clear. They tell you to enter this line and then don’t tell you what to do next.

Here’s what I did – worked for me.

In your Git Bash window, enter this line:

$ git config --global credential.helper wincred

Now push a change to Github and enter your credentials – this is where your username and password information gets saved to the credential helper.

You won’t get any feedback telling you that, but you can confirm it worked by pushing another change. This time, you shouldn’t have to enter your credentials again.

But I have this problem on Linux!

Try this: Caching your GitHub password in Git

$ git config --global credential.helper cache

Add a screenshot to your Github repo README.md

Today I learned… that you can add images to a Github repository README.md file! I’m now drunk with power and the desire to decorate all my repos with screenshots.

In README.md:

![alt text](screenshots/filename.png "Description goes here")

This approach (with a relative filepath to screenshots/filename.png) assumes your screenshot is part of your repo. For student projects, personal work, and other small stuff, including screenshots in your repo is no biggie.

If you don’t want the screenshot in your repo, you can upload it somewhere else and link to it directly like so:

![alt tag](http://domain.com/path/to/img.png "Description goes here")

.png is the preferred file format.

To take a screenshot on a Mac, press COMMAND + SHIFT + 4 at the same time. By default, the screenshot is saved as a .png to your desktop.

Reasons why repo screenshots rule:

screenshots illustrate what the project does
they help distinguish your repos from one another
they can help you remember projects you worked on a while ago
they show off your ability to document your work*
save you from having to clone in a project and start up a server to remember what it looked like
make a pretty portfolio of your work

* Documenting your stuff helps future-you and everyone else you might ever work with (including maybe your manager or boss). The people who do well in their careers are often those who take the time to record what they did, how they did it, why they did it that way, and share it with others. The ability to document one’s work is something I always looked for when making a hiring decision.

Screenshot action shot:

I don’t expect to win any graphic design awards here, but I can surf my own repos and remember what I did at a glance, which is pretty sweet.