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Creating a pull request from a fork

You can create a pull request to propose changes you've made to a fork of an upstream repository.

Anyone with write access to a repository can create a pull request from a user-owned fork.

You can also give the upstream repository's maintainers permission to push commits to a user-owned fork. If your pull request compares your topic branch with a branch in the upstream repository as the base branch, then your topic branch is also called the compare branch of the pull request. For more information about pull request branches, including examples, see "Creating a pull request."

  1. Navigate to the original repository where you created your fork.

  2. Above the list of files, click Pull request. "Pull request" link above list of files

  3. On the Compare page, click compare across forks. Compare across forks link

  4. In the "base branch" drop-down menu, select the branch of the upstream repository you'd like to merge changes into. Drop-down menus for choosing the base fork and branch

  5. In the "head fork" drop-down menu, select your fork, then use the "compare branch" drop-down menu to select the branch you made your changes in. Drop-down menus for choosing the head fork and compare branch

  6. Type a title and description for your pull request. Pull request title and description fields

  7. On user-owned forks, if you want to allow anyone with push access to the upstream repository to make changes to your pull request, select Allow edits from maintainers.

    Warning: If your fork contains GitHub Actions workflows, the option is Allow edits and access to secrets by maintainers. Allowing edits on a fork's branch that contains GitHub Actions workflows also allows a maintainer to edit the forked repository's workflows, which can potentially reveal values of secrets and grant access to other branches.

    allow-maintainers-to-make-edits-checkbox

  8. To create a pull request that is ready for review, click Create Pull Request. To create a draft pull request, use the drop-down and select Create Draft Pull Request, then click Draft Pull Request. For more information about draft pull requests, see "About pull requests."Create pull request button

Tip: After you create a pull request, you can ask a specific person to review your proposed changes. For more information, see "Requesting a pull request review."

Further reading