Create a repository
GitHub repositories store a variety of projects. In this guide, you'll create a repository and commit your first change.
Note
To learn more about GitHub CLI, see About GitHub CLI.
- In the command line, navigate to the directory where you would like to create a local clone of your new project.
- To create a repository for your project, use the
gh repo create
subcommand. When prompted, select Create a new repository on GitHub from scratch and enter the name of your new project. If you want your project to belong to an organization instead of to your personal account, specify the organization name and project name withorganization-name/project-name
. - Follow the interactive prompts. To clone the repository locally, confirm yes when asked if you would like to clone the remote project directory.
- Alternatively, to skip the prompts supply the repository name and a visibility flag (
--public
,--private
, or--internal
). For example,gh repo create project-name --public
. To clone the repository locally, pass the--clone
flag. For more information about possible arguments, see the GitHub CLI manual.
Commit your first change
Now that you have created a project, you can start committing changes.
README files are a great place to describe your project in more detail, or add some documentation such as how to install or use your project. The contents of your README file are automatically shown on the front page of your repository. Follow these steps to add a README file.
-
In the command line, navigate to the root directory of your new project. (This directory was created when you ran the
gh repo create
command.) -
Create a README file with some information about the project.
echo "info about this project" >> README.md
-
Enter
git status
. You will see that you have an untrackedREADME.md
file.$ git status Untracked files: (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed) README.md nothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to track)
-
Stage and commit the file.
git add README.md && git commit -m "Add README"
-
Push the changes to your branch.
git push --set-upstream origin HEAD
Next steps
You have now created a repository, including a README file, and created your first commit on GitHub.
-
Secure your repository using GitHub's available security features. For more information, see Quickstart for securing your repository.
-
You can find interesting projects and repositories on GitHub and make changes to them by creating a fork of the repository. Forking a repository will allow you to make changes to another repository without affecting the original. For more information, see Fork a repository.
-
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.