Fork a repository

A fork is a new repository that shares code and visibility settings with the original “upstream” repository.

Who can use this feature?

Members of an enterprise with managed users cannot fork repositories from outside of the enterprise or fork internal repositories.

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About forks

A fork is a new repository that shares code and visibility settings with the original “upstream” repository. Forks are often used to iterate on ideas or changes before they are proposed back to the upstream repository, such as in open source projects or when a user does not have write access to the upstream repository. For more information, see Working with forks.

Propose changes to someone else's project

For example, you can use forks to propose changes related to fixing a bug. Rather than logging an issue for a bug you have found, you can:

  • Fork the repository.
  • Make the fix.
  • Submit a pull request to the project owner.

Use someone else's project as a starting point for your own idea.

Open source software is based on the idea that by sharing code, we can make better, more reliable software. For more information, see the About the Open Source Initiative on the Open Source Initiative.

For more information about applying open source principles to your organization's development work on GitHub, see GitHub's white paper An introduction to innersource.

When creating your public repository from a fork of someone's project, make sure to include a license file that determines how you want your project to be shared with others. For more information, see Choose an open source license at choosealicense.com.

For more information on open source, specifically how to create and grow an open source project, we've created Open Source Guides that will help you foster a healthy open source community by recommending best practices for creating and maintaining repositories for your open source project. You can also take a free GitHub Skills course on maintaining open source communities.

Prerequisites

If you haven't yet, first set up Git and authentication with GitHub.com from Git. For more information, see Set up Git.

Forking a repository

You might fork a project to propose changes to the upstream repository. In this case, it's good practice to regularly sync your fork with the upstream repository. To do this, you'll need to use Git on the command line. You can practice setting the upstream repository using the same octocat/Spoon-Knife repository you just forked.

  1. On GitHub, navigate to the octocat/Spoon-Knife repository.

  2. In the top-right corner of the page, click Fork.

    Screenshot of the main page of repository. A button, labeled with a fork icon and "Fork 59.3k," is outlined in dark orange.

  3. Under "Owner," select the dropdown menu and click an owner for the forked repository.

  4. By default, forks are named the same as their upstream repositories. Optionally, to further distinguish your fork, in the "Repository name" field, type a name.

  5. Optionally, in the "Description" field, type a description of your fork.

  6. Optionally, select Copy the DEFAULT branch only.

    For many forking scenarios, such as contributing to open-source projects, you only need to copy the default branch. If you do not select this option, all branches will be copied into the new fork.

  7. Click Create fork.

Note

If you want to copy additional branches from the upstream repository, you can do so from the Branches page. For more information, see Creating and deleting branches within your repository.

Note

To learn more about GitHub CLI, see About GitHub CLI.

To create a fork of a repository, use the gh repo fork subcommand.

gh repo fork REPOSITORY

To create the fork in an organization, use the --org flag.

gh repo fork REPOSITORY --org "octo-org"

You can fork a repository on GitHub.com or in GitHub Desktop. For information about forking on GitHub.com, see the web browser version of this article.

In GitHub Desktop, if you clone a repository that you do not have write access to, and then attempt to push a change to the repository, a fork will be created for you.

  1. In the File menu, click Clone Repository.

    Screenshot of the menu bar on a Mac. The "File" dropdown menu is expanded, and the "Clone Repository" option is highlighted with an orange outline.

    Screenshot of the "GitHub Desktop" menu bar on Windows. The "File" dropdown menu is expanded, and the "Clone Repository" option is outlined in orange.

  2. Click the tab that corresponds to the location of the repository you want to clone. In this example, we click on the URL tab.

    Screenshot of the "URL" tab of the "Clone a repository" window. At the top of the window, "GitHub.com", "GitHub Enterprise" and "URL" tabs are outlined in orange.

  3. Enter the url or path of the repository you want to clone.

    Screenshot of the "URL" tab of the "Clone a repository" window. The input containing "octocat/Spoon-Knife" is highlighted with an orange outline.

  4. To select the local directory into which you want to clone the repository, next to the "Local Path" field, click Choose... and navigate to the directory.

    Screenshot of the "URL" tab of the "Clone a repository" window. A button, labeled "Choose", is highlighted with an orange outline.

  5. At the bottom of the "Clone a Repository" window, click Clone.

  6. To create a fork, attempt to push a change to the repository. For example, create a new branch and publish it. A prompt will appear asking if you want to fork this repository.

    Screenshot of the "Create a fork prompt" window. A button, labeled "Fork this repository", is highlighted with an orange outline.

  7. Read the information in the "How are you planning to use this fork?" window.

    • If you plan to use this fork for contributing to the original upstream repository, click To contribute to the parent project.
    • If you plan to use this fork for a project not connected to the upstream, click For my own purposes.

  8. Click Continue.

Cloning your forked repository

Right now, you have a fork of the Spoon-Knife repository, but you do not have the files in that repository locally on your computer.

  1. On GitHub, navigate to your fork of the Spoon-Knife repository.

  2. Above the list of files, click Code.

    Screenshot of the list of files on the landing page of a repository. The "Code" button is highlighted with a dark orange outline.

  3. Copy the URL for the repository.

    • To clone the repository using HTTPS, under "HTTPS", click .

    • To clone the repository using an SSH key, including a certificate issued by your organization's SSH certificate authority, click SSH, then click .

    • To clone a repository using GitHub CLI, click GitHub CLI, then click .

      Screenshot of the "Code" dropdown menu. To the right of the HTTPS URL for the repository, a copy icon is outlined in dark orange.

  4. Open TerminalTerminalGit Bash.

  5. Change the current working directory to the location where you want the cloned directory.

  6. Type git clone, and then paste the URL you copied earlier. It will look like this, with your GitHub username instead of YOUR-USERNAME:

    git clone https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/Spoon-Knife

  7. Press Enter. Your local clone will be created.

    $ git clone https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/Spoon-Knife
> Cloning into `Spoon-Knife`...
> remote: Counting objects: 10, done.
> remote: Compressing objects: 100% (8/8), done.
> remote: Total 10 (delta 1), reused 10 (delta 1)
> Unpacking objects: 100% (10/10), done.

Cloning your forked repository

Right now, you have a fork of the Spoon-Knife repository, but you do not have the files in that repository locally on your computer.

Note

To learn more about GitHub CLI, see About GitHub CLI.

To create a clone of your fork, use the --clone flag.

gh repo fork REPOSITORY --clone=true

Configuring Git to sync your fork with the upstream repository

When you fork a project in order to propose changes to the upstream repository, you can configure Git to pull changes from the upstream repository into the local clone of your fork.

  1. On GitHub, navigate to the octocat/Spoon-Knife repository.

  2. Above the list of files, click Code.

    Screenshot of the list of files on the landing page of a repository. The "Code" button is highlighted with a dark orange outline.

  3. Copy the URL for the repository.

    • To clone the repository using HTTPS, under "HTTPS", click .

    • To clone the repository using an SSH key, including a certificate issued by your organization's SSH certificate authority, click SSH, then click .

    • To clone a repository using GitHub CLI, click GitHub CLI, then click .

      Screenshot of the "Code" dropdown menu. To the right of the HTTPS URL for the repository, a copy icon is outlined in dark orange.

  4. Open TerminalTerminalGit Bash.

  5. Change directories to the location of the fork you cloned.

    • To go to your home directory, type just cd with no other text.
    • To list the files and folders in your current directory, type ls.
    • To go into one of your listed directories, type cd YOUR-LISTED-DIRECTORY.
    • To go up one directory, type cd ...

  6. Type git remote -v and press Enter. You will see the current configured remote repository for your fork.

    $ git remote -v
> origin  https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/YOUR-FORK.git (fetch)
> origin  https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/YOUR-FORK.git (push)

  7. Type git remote add upstream, and then paste the URL you copied in Step 3 and press Enter. It will look like this:

    git remote add upstream https://github.com/ORIGINAL-OWNER/Spoon-Knife.git

  8. To verify the new upstream repository you have specified for your fork, type git remote -v again. You should see the URL for your fork as origin, and the URL for the upstream repository as upstream.

    $ git remote -v
> origin    https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/YOUR-FORK.git (fetch)
> origin    https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/YOUR-FORK.git (push)
> upstream  https://github.com/ORIGINAL-OWNER/ORIGINAL-REPOSITORY.git (fetch)
> upstream  https://github.com/ORIGINAL-OWNER/ORIGINAL-REPOSITORY.git (push)

Now, you can keep your fork synced with the upstream repository with a few Git commands. For more information, see Syncing a fork.

Note

To learn more about GitHub CLI, see About GitHub CLI.

To configure a remote repository for the forked repository, use the --remote flag.

gh repo fork REPOSITORY --remote=true

To specify the remote repository's name, use the --remote-name flag.

gh repo fork REPOSITORY --remote-name "main-remote-repo"

Editing a fork

You can make any changes to a fork, including:

  • Creating branches: Branches allow you to build new features or test out ideas without putting your main project at risk.
  • Opening pull requests: If you want to contribute back to the upstream repository, you can send a request to the original author to pull your fork into their repository by submitting a pull request.

Find another repository to fork

Fork a repository to start contributing to a project. You can fork a private or internal repository to your personal account or to an organization on GitHub where you have permission to create repositories, provided that the settings for the repository and your enterprise policies allow forking. Generally, you can fork any public repository to your personal account or to an organization where you have permission to create repositories, unless you're a member of an enterprise with managed users.

For more information about when you can fork a repository, see About permissions and visibility of forks.

You can browse Explore GitHub to find projects and start contributing to open source repositories. For more information, see Finding ways to contribute to open source on GitHub.

Next steps

You have now forked a repository, practiced cloning your fork, and configured an upstream repository.

  • For more information about cloning the fork and syncing the changes in a forked repository from your computer, see Set up Git.

  • You can also create a new repository where you can put all your projects and share the code on GitHub. Creating a repository for your project allows you to store code in GitHub. This provides a backup of your work that you can choose to share with other developers. For more information, see Quickstart for repositories.

  • Each repository on GitHub is owned by a person or an organization. You can interact with the people, repositories, and organizations by connecting and following them on GitHub. For more information, see Finding inspiration on GitHub.

  • GitHub has a great support community where you can ask for help and talk to people from around the world. Join the conversation on GitHub Community.