Repositories documentation
Learn to use and manage the repositories that allow you to store and collaborate on your project's code.
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Cloning a repository
When you create a repository on GitHub, it exists as a remote repository. You can clone your repository to create a local copy on your computer and sync between the two locations.
Restoring a deleted repository
You can restore some deleted repositories to recover their contents.
Adding a file to a repository
You can upload and commit an existing file to a repository on GitHub or by using the command line.
Licensing a repository
Public repositories on GitHub are often used to share open source software. For your repository to truly be open source, you'll need to license it so that others are free to use, change, and distribute the software.
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About protected branches
You can protect important branches by setting branch protection rules, which define whether collaborators can delete or force push to the branch and set requirements for any pushes to the branch, such as passing status checks or a linear commit history.
About releases
You can create a release to package software, along with release notes and links to binary files, for other people to use.
About the repository README file
You can add a README file to your repository to tell other people why your project is useful, what they can do with your project, and how they can use it.
About code owners
You can use a CODEOWNERS file to define individuals or teams that are responsible for code in a repository.
Deleting a repository
You can delete any repository or fork if you're either an organization owner or have admin permissions for the repository or fork. Deleting a forked repository does not delete the upstream repository.
Managing a branch protection rule
You can create a branch protection rule to enforce certain workflows for one or more branches, such as requiring an approving review or passing status checks for all pull requests merged into the protected branch.
Setting repository visibility
You can choose who can view your repository.
Creating and managing repositories
- About repositories
- Best practices for repositories
- Quickstart for repositories
- Repository limits
- Creating a new repository
- Creating a repository from a template
- Creating a template repository
- Creating an issues-only repository
- Duplicating a repository
- Cloning a repository
- Troubleshooting cloning errors
- Renaming a repository
- Transferring a repository
- Deleting a repository
- Restoring a deleted repository
Viewing activity and data for your repository
- Viewing deployment activity for your repository
- About repository graphs
- Using Pulse to view a summary of repository activity
- Viewing traffic to a repository
- Viewing a project's contributors
- Analyzing changes to a repository's content
- Understanding connections between repositories
- Using the activity view to see changes to a repository