World 4: Hello GitHub

Forks and syncing

You will learn: how to copy someone's project into your account and keep your copy up to date.

The problem

Mei’s recipe site has a typo. You can’t push to her repo. How can you help?

Watch

Tap each point on the timeline.

A is your own copy of someone’s repo, on GitHub. Tap each step.

Watch

~/recipes $ git remote add upstream https://github.com/mei/recipes.git~/recipes $ git remote -vorigin        https://github.com/you/recipes.git (fetch)origin        https://github.com/you/recipes.git (push)upstream        https://github.com/mei/recipes.git (fetch)upstream        https://github.com/mei/recipes.git (push)

Your clone knows origin: your fork. Add Mei’s repo as a second remote. The usual name for it is .

Predict

Mei adds a roti canai recipe to her repo. Does your fork get it by itself?

Try it

Sync your fork: add upstream, fetch, merge, then push.

Check

GitHub also gives your fork a Sync fork button. On your laptop, it’s these steps. Put them in order.

First step at the top. Put these in order. Use the arrows, or drag.

git push
git remote add upstream <Mei’s address>
git fetch upstream
git merge upstream/main

Check

Fork habits: good, or needs work? Swipe each one.

Swipe right for good, left for needs work. Or use the buttons.

1 / 3

Sync your fork before you start new work

You did it!

You can now fork a project and keep your copy in sync.

Go deeper (optional)

The GitHub CLI can do this too. gh repo fork --clone forks and clones in one go. gh repo sync updates a fork from its parent. A fork remembers the original, so pull requests know where to go.