GitHub Collaboration Challenge

Form teams of three people.

Follow these instructions with your teammates to practice creating a GitHub repository, branching, pull requests (PRs), review, and merging. Work in groups of three—each person will create and review a pull request.

0. Everyone needs a GitHub account

Go ahead and use your personal email address to register - you'll want to take this one with you after you graduate.

1. Create and clone the repository

  1. Choose one teammate to act as the repository owner.
    • They should log in to GitHub, click the “+” menu in the upper‑right and select New repository.
    • Give the repository a short, memorable name, optionally add a description, make the visibility public, check “Add a README,” and
    • click Create repository.
    • Go to Settings/Collaborators and add your teammates as developers with write access.
  2. Each team member needs a local copy of the repository. On the repo’s main page, click Code, copy the HTTPS URL, open a terminal, navigate to the folder where you want the project, and run:
git clone <repo‑URL>

Cloning creates a full local copy of all files and history.

2. Create your own branch

Branching lets you make changes without affecting the default main branch.

On your machine:

git checkout -b <your‑first‑name>-branch
git push -u origin <your‑first‑name>-branch  # creates the branch on GitHub

3. Add a personal file, commit and push

  1. In your cloned repository (on your topic branch), at the command line (using the shell skills we learned last time):
  • Create a directory inside the repo called our_bios
  • Create a new text file named after yourself (e.g., alex.txt) in that directory
  • Write a few sentences about yourself (major, hometown, a fun fact) to that file.

  1. Stage and commit the file:

    git add alex.txt # this only works if you are in the directory where the file is, otherwise you'll have to think about what the path is to the file you're adding relative to your working directory
git commit -m "Add personal bio for Alex"

  2. Push your commit to GitHub:

    git push

4. Create a pull request (PR) for your teammates to review

  1. On GitHub, click Pull requests → New pull request.
  2. Set the base branch to main and the compare branch to your branch.
  3. Provide a clear title (e.g. “Add Alex’s bio”) and a short description of what you added. Creating a pull request lets your collaborators review and discuss your changes before merging them.
  4. Request reviews from your two teammates.

5. Review your teammates’ pull requests

  1. Open each of your teammates’ PRs.
  2. On the Conversation or Files changed tab, leave at least one constructive comment (ask a question or suggest something you’d like them to add). You can comment on a specific line or leave a general comment.
  3. Submit your review with the Comment option. Pull request reviews can be comments, approvals, or requests for changes; you’re only commenting at this stage.

6. Address feedback by making another commit

  1. Read the comments on your PR. Edit your text file locally in response to the feedback.

  2. Stage, commit, and push the changes:

    git add alex.txt
git commit -m "Address feedback"
git push

    Any new commits you push will automatically update the open pull request.

  3. Reply to the reviewer’s comment in the PR, explaining how you addressed their feedback.

7. Approve and merge pull requests

  1. After each PR author has addressed the comments, revisit the PRs you reviewed.
    • Click Review changes → Approve to approve the updated PR.
  2. Once a PR has at least one approval, a teammate other than the author should merge it.
    -In the PR, scroll to the bottom and click Merge pull request, then Confirm merge.
  3. Delete the topic branch when prompted; keeping the branch list tidy is good practice.

Each student should merge one of the other students’ PRs so everyone practices.

8. Capture a snapshot for submission

  1. One teammate downloads a snapshot of the final repository. On the repo’s main page, click Code → Download ZIP. GitHub generates a snapshot of the current branch or commit.
  2. Open the Commits page (click the “n commits” link) and take a screenshot showing the commit history.
  3. Go to Pull requests → Closed, and capture a screenshot showing the three closed PRs and their approval status. You can also use the Activity view to see a detailed history of pushes, merges, and branch changes.
  4. Upload the ZIP file and screenshots to Gradescope.

Tips

  • Use descriptive commit messages and branch names.
  • Each commit is a snapshot; keep commits focused on a single change.
  • Be polite and constructive in your feedback.
  • Delete merged branches to keep your repository clean.

This exercise walks you through the entire GitHub flow—creating a repository, branching, committing, creating a PR, reviewing, addressing feedback, merging, and capturing a snapshot. Completing these steps will help you collaborate effectively on future projects.