This is a guide for beginners on how to make a contribution using Git and GitHub. If you are looking to make your first contribution, follow the steps below.

As a complement to the instructions below, feel free to watch this video where I do all the following steps in real time. It takes about 15 minutes.

It is for free and should just take some minutes.

Here is a tutorial on how to set up Git.

Click on the fork button on the top of this page. This will create a copy of this repository in your account.

Go to your GitHub account, open the forked repository, click on the code button and then click the copy to clipboard icon.

Then, open a terminal and run the following git command:

git clone "url you just copied"

where "url you just copied" (without the quotation marks) is the url to this repository (your fork of this project). See the previous steps to obtain the url.

For example:

git clone https://github.com/this-is-you/make_a_pull_request.git

where this-is-you is your GitHub username. Here you're copying the contents of the first-contributions repository on GitHub to your computer.

Change to the repository directory on your computer (if you are not already there):

cd make_a_pull_request

Now create a branch using the git switch command:

git switch -c your-new-branch-name

For example:

git switch -c add-Stephan-Huber

Now open theI_am_a_data_scientist.md file in a text editor. (You find this file in the repository.) Add your name, your GitHub account and the paper that you want to reproduce to it. Don't add it at the beginning or end of the file. Put it anywhere in between. Now, save the file.

If you go to the project directory and execute the command git status, you'll see there are changes.

Add those changes to the branch you just created using the git add command:

git add .

Now commit those changes using the git commit command:

git commit -m "Add your-name to the list"

replacing your-name with your name.

Open Git Bash and set your email and your nickname on GitHub:

git config --global user.name "FIRST_NAME LAST_NAME"
git config --global user.email "[email protected]"

Push your changes using the command git push:

git push -u origin your-new-branch-name

replacing your-new-branch-name with the name of the branch you created earlier.

If you get any errors while pushing that refers to authentication failed something, go to GitHub's tutorial on generating and configuring an SSH key to your account. Alternatively, you can watch this YouTube tutorial

If you go to your repository on GitHub, you'll see a Compare & pull request button. Click on that button.

Now submit the pull request.

Soon I'll be merging all your changes into the main branch of this project. You will get a notification email once the changes have been merged.

Congrats! You just completed the standard fork -> clone -> edit -> pull request workflow that you'll often encounter as a contributor!

If you write a project report for the Hochschule Fresenius, don't forget to mention that you have successfully gone through that tutorial!