Contributing to Github-hosted projects

2012-05-07

Some projects provide information about how people should fork and contribute to them. This is my general approach (included here, obviously, for my own edification):

Fork a project: Github clickity-click

Clone it locally:

git clone git@github.com:username/project.git</pre>

Add the upstream project:

git remote add upstream git@github.com:upstream/project.git

Do not commit to the master branch; it is to be kept up-to-date with upstream master:
```
git pull upstream master
```
Create branches that solve one feature or issue each, named whatever:
```
git branch new-branch-name master
```
Create a ‘personal master’ named with your username:
```
git branch username master
```
Do not merge master into feature branches, rather rebase these on top of master:
```
git rebase new-branch-name
```
Merge all personal feature branches into your personal master branch, so you’ve got a branch that represents all your development.

My main goal is to create discrete branches, based on the upstream master, for features that I want to push back upstream.

(No doubt I’m missing obvious things, and any git-geek will see instantly the gaps in my knowledge.)

Updates:

To combine the last three commits (and write a new commit message; kudos to Chris Johnsen):

git reset --soft HEAD~3
git commit