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2. Forking & Cloning

Mastering Forking and Cloning on GitHub

Welcome to the next step in your GitHub journey! This guide will delve into the essential practices of forking and cloning repositories, pivotal for contributing to projects and customizing your workflow.

Dive into Our Detailed Video Tutorial

To ensure you have a solid grasp of forking and cloning, we’ve prepared a detailed video tutorial. This resource will guide you through each step, ensuring you can confidently contribute to projects:

Forking and Cloning Repositories Video Tutorial - Click to Watch!

Understanding Forking and Cloning

Forking a repository allows you to create a personal copy of a project within your GitHub account. This is your playground for experimentation, enabling you to make changes without impacting the original repository.

Cloning makes a local copy of a repository on your computer. It’s perfect for offline work, allowing you to push your changes back to GitHub once you’re ready.

Forking a Repository: Step-by-Step

  1. Find the Repository: Navigate to the repository on GitHub that you wish to fork.
  2. Fork the Repository: Click the Fork button located at the top-right of the page. If prompted, select your personal account as the destination.
  3. Fork Confirmation: You’ll now have your own fork of the repository in your GitHub account, ready for your contributions.

Cloning a Repository: How-To

  1. Locate the Repository: On GitHub, go to the main page of the repository you wish to clone.
  2. Prepare to Clone: Click Code and under “Clone with HTTPS”, copy the provided URL.
  3. Open Your Terminal: Launch the terminal within VS Code or your preferred environment.
  4. Navigate to Your Directory: Use cd to change to the directory where you want the cloned directory.
    • Example: cd Users\User\Documents\GitHub\Handbook
    • Ensure you’re cloning into an empty folder for a smooth process.
  5. Clone: Type git clone, then paste the URL you copied. Press enter to create your local clone.
Terminal window
git clone https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/YOUR-REPOSITORY