Step 7 · about 10 minutes

Branch, then open a pull request

A branch is a safe copy to experiment in. A pull request is how you review that experiment before it joins the real thing.

A branch is your own line of changes, running alongside main. Nothing you do on it touches main until you say so.

Terminal

# make a branch and move onto it
$ git switch -c add-a-goal
# edit README.md again, then:
$ git add README.md
$ git commit -m "Add what I want to build"
$ git push -u origin add-a-goal

GitHub prints a link in the terminal. Open it — or reload your repo page and click Compare & pull request. Write one line about what you changed and click Create pull request.

Screenshot slot — An open pull requestThe Conversation tab, showing one commit and the Merge buttonpublic/shots/gh-05-pull-request.png

Look at the Files changed tab: every line you added is green, every line you removed is red. That is the review. When you are happy, click Merge pull request — your change is now part of main.