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🏠 Homepage 🏠 Syllabus of Day 2 ⬅️ Previous: 🔁 Opening a Pull Request (PR)

7. Adding Collaborators (Alternative to Forking)

What is a Collaborator?

A collaborator is someone who has been granted direct write access to a repository. Collaborators can push changes, create branches, and merge pull requests without needing to fork the repository.

When to Add Collaborators

For private or team projects where you want to work closely with others.
When you trust contributors to make direct changes to the repository.
To simplify the workflow (no need to fork and create pull requests from forks).

How to Add Collaborators on GitHub

Go to your repository on GitHub.
Click on the Settings tab.
In the left sidebar, click Collaborators & teams (or Manage access).
Click Add people.
Enter the GitHub username of the person you want to add and click Add.

Permissions Required

Only repository owners or users with admin rights can add collaborators.
Collaborators can push, pull, and create branches.

Cloning as a Collaborator

Once added as a collaborator, you can clone the repository and push changes directly:

git clone git@github.com:owner/repo-name.git
cd repo-name

Example Workflow for Collaborators

Clone the repository:

git clone git@github.com:owner/repo-name.git
cd repo-name

Create a new branch for your changes:
```
git checkout -b feature/your-feature
```

Make changes, commit, and push:

git add .
git commit -m "Describe your changes"
git push origin feature/your-feature

Open a pull request (recommended for code review).

Summary Table

Action	Description/Command
Add collaborator	Settings → Collaborators & teams → Add people
Clone repo	`git clone git@github.com:owner/repo-name.git`
Create branch	`git checkout -b feature/your-feature`
Push branch	`git push origin feature/your-feature`

Tip:
Adding collaborators is best for trusted team members working on private or shared projects.

➡️Up Next: 🔀 Merging the PR into Main

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