Github use guidelines - nationalarchives/tna-guidelines GitHub Wiki

DRAFT / Not cuurrently available as a Word document in Objective.

Github is a website and service that provides source control, issue tracking, project management and documentation tools that are widely used in Digital Services - this doucment will hopefully do the following

  • Outline guidelines and advice on how to use (and not use) Github
  • Explain the various ways that Digital Services are using Github (please add to this if you think you can)
  • Outline some working practices to follow
  • Probably other stuff

Using Github

You will need to create a Github account with two-factor authentication enabled - once you have set this up if you email webmaster with your username you can then be added to The National Archives organisation.

Users and usernames

It is important that it's clear to everyone who is who on Slack - you can and you should include your full name and an unambiguous display name.

People who leave The National Archives will be removed from The National Archives'organisation.

Privacy

The National Archives has an old-style paid plan with Github that gives us a limited number of private repositories which means we have a lot of content in public repos - things to remember...

  • Only use a private repository if you need to
  • NEVER put anything into a public repository that is a security issue e.g.
    • passwords
    • infrastructure details that might give malicious folk a head start
    • any private information

Using Projects and Issues

Where possible Issues should be created in the repository that they specifically relate to regardless of the theme or team who are creating the issue - so e.g. an issue created by Findability but concerning a feature in Discovery should be added to the Discovery repository.

Otherwise issues can be created in theme team, or operations repositories.

Issues can be added to project boards in the same reporitory or project boards at organisation level.

If an issue needs to be tracked in a sibling repository project (e.g. to track a Discovery issue in a Findability project) you will need to create a link card - this can be done by pasting the link to the issue into a project note. This will display all the pertinent information in the project board and link to the issue in the sibling repositlory.