GitHub Lesson Plan

A progressive curriculum to master GitHub through hands-on practice.

Lesson 1: Repository Basics

Goal: Create and configure repositories.

Concepts

GitHub hosts git repositories and adds collaboration features: issues, pull requests, actions, and more.

Exercises

Create a repository

# On github.com: New repository
# Or with gh CLI:
gh repo create my-project --public --clone
cd my-project

Clone and configure

git clone https://github.com/you/repo.git
cd repo

# Or with SSH (recommended)
git clone git@github.com:you/repo.git

# Set up gh CLI
gh auth login
gh auth status

Repository settings

# View repo info
gh repo view

# Edit settings
gh repo edit --description "My awesome project"
gh repo edit --visibility private
gh repo edit --enable-issues=false

Add essential files

# README.md - project overview
# LICENSE - usage terms (MIT, Apache, etc.)
# .gitignore - files to exclude
# CONTRIBUTING.md - how to contribute

gh repo view --web  # Open in browser

Checkpoint

Create a repo with README, LICENSE, and .gitignore. Clone it locally.

Lesson 2: Issues

Goal: Track work with issues.

Concepts

Issues track bugs, features, and tasks. They’re the unit of work on GitHub.

Exercises

Create issues

# Create issue
gh issue create --title "Add user authentication" \
  --body "Implement login/logout functionality"

# With labels
gh issue create --title "Fix navbar bug" \
  --label "bug" --label "priority:high"

# Assign to yourself
gh issue create --title "Update docs" --assignee @me

List and view issues

gh issue list
gh issue list --state open
gh issue list --label "bug"
gh issue list --assignee @me

gh issue view 123
gh issue view 123 --web  # Open in browser

Update issues

# Add comment
gh issue comment 123 --body "Working on this now"

# Close issue
gh issue close 123

# Reopen
gh issue reopen 123

# Edit
gh issue edit 123 --add-label "in-progress"
gh issue edit 123 --add-assignee @me

Link issues to code

# Reference in commit message
git commit -m "Add login form (refs #123)"

# Close via commit
git commit -m "Implement auth (fixes #123)"

# Keywords: fixes, closes, resolves

Checkpoint

Create 3 issues with different labels. Close one via a commit message.

Lesson 3: Pull Requests

Goal: Propose and review changes.

Concepts

Pull requests (PRs) propose merging one branch into another. They enable code review, discussion, and CI checks before merging.

Exercises

Create a PR

# Create branch and make changes
git switch -c feature/add-search
# ... make changes ...
git add . && git commit -m "Add search functionality"
git push -u origin feature/add-search

# Create PR
gh pr create --title "Add search" \
  --body "Implements search feature. Fixes #45"

# Or interactively
gh pr create --fill  # Uses commit messages

List and view PRs

gh pr list
gh pr list --state all
gh pr list --author @me

gh pr view 42
gh pr view 42 --web
gh pr diff 42

Review PRs

# Check out PR locally
gh pr checkout 42

# Add review
gh pr review 42 --approve
gh pr review 42 --request-changes --body "Please fix X"
gh pr review 42 --comment --body "Looks good overall"

# Comment on specific line
gh pr comment 42 --body "Consider using Y here"

Merge and cleanup

# Merge PR
gh pr merge 42
gh pr merge 42 --squash   # Squash commits
gh pr merge 42 --rebase   # Rebase commits
gh pr merge 42 --delete-branch  # Delete after merge

# Close without merging
gh pr close 42

Checkpoint

Create a feature branch, open a PR, and merge it with squash.

Lesson 4: GitHub Actions Basics

Goal: Automate workflows with CI/CD.

Concepts

Actions run automated workflows triggered by events (push, PR, schedule). Workflows are YAML files in .github/workflows/.

Exercises

Create a basic workflow

name: CI

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  pull_request:

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Run tests
        run: npm test

View workflow runs

gh run list
gh run view 12345
gh run view 12345 --log
gh run watch  # Live view of in-progress run

Trigger and manage runs

# Re-run failed jobs
gh run rerun 12345

# Cancel run
gh run cancel 12345

# Download artifacts
gh run download 12345

Common patterns

# Matrix builds
jobs:
  test:
    strategy:
      matrix:
        node: [18, 20, 22]
        os: [ubuntu-latest, macos-latest]
    runs-on: ${{ matrix.os }}
    steps:
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: ${{ matrix.node }}

# Conditional steps
- name: Deploy
  if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/main'
  run: ./deploy.sh

Checkpoint

Create a workflow that runs tests on every PR and push to main.

Lesson 5: Advanced Actions

Goal: Build sophisticated CI/CD pipelines.

Exercises

Caching dependencies

- uses: actions/cache@v4
  with:
    path: ~/.npm
    key: ${{ runner.os }}-node-${{ hashFiles('**/package-lock.json') }}
    restore-keys: |
      ${{ runner.os }}-node-

Secrets and environment variables

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    env:
      NODE_ENV: production
    steps:
      - name: Deploy
        env:
          API_KEY: ${{ secrets.API_KEY }}
        run: ./deploy.sh

# Manage secrets
gh secret set API_KEY
gh secret list

Job dependencies

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - run: npm run build

  test:
    needs: build
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - run: npm test

  deploy:
    needs: [build, test]
    if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/main'
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - run: ./deploy.sh

Reusable workflows

on:
  workflow_call:
    inputs:
      environment:
        required: true
        type: string

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - run: echo "Deploying to ${{ inputs.environment }}"

# Calling workflow
jobs:
  call-deploy:
    uses: ./.github/workflows/reusable.yml
    with:
      environment: production

Checkpoint

Create a workflow with build, test, and deploy jobs. Add caching for dependencies.

Lesson 6: Collaboration Features

Goal: Use GitHub’s collaboration tools effectively.

Exercises

Code owners

# .github/CODEOWNERS
# Default owners
* @team-leads

# Specific paths
/docs/ @docs-team
*.js @frontend-team
/api/ @backend-team @security-team

Branch protection

# Via gh CLI (limited)
gh api repos/{owner}/{repo}/branches/main/protection \
  --method PUT \
  --field required_status_checks='{"strict":true,"contexts":["test"]}' \
  --field enforce_admins=true \
  --field required_pull_request_reviews='{"required_approving_review_count":1}'

Key settings:

Require PR reviews before merging
Require status checks to pass
Require branches to be up to date
Include administrators

Templates

## <!-- .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/bug_report.md -->

name: Bug Report about: Report a bug labels: bug

---

## Description

## Steps to Reproduce

1.
2.
3.

## Expected Behavior

## Actual Behavior

## Summary

## Changes

## Testing

## Checklist

- [ ] Tests added
- [ ] Documentation updated

Discussions and wikis

# Enable discussions
gh repo edit --enable-discussions

# Discussions are for:
# - Q&A
# - Ideas and feature requests
# - Show and tell
# - General conversation

Checkpoint

Add CODEOWNERS, issue template, and PR template to a repository.

Lesson 7: Releases and Packages

Goal: Publish releases and packages.

Exercises

Create releases

# Create a tag
git tag -a v1.0.0 -m "Version 1.0.0"
git push origin v1.0.0

# Create release from tag
gh release create v1.0.0 --title "v1.0.0" \
  --notes "First stable release"

# With auto-generated notes
gh release create v1.1.0 --generate-notes

# Upload assets
gh release create v1.0.0 ./dist/app.zip ./dist/app.tar.gz

List and manage releases

gh release list
gh release view v1.0.0
gh release download v1.0.0

# Edit release
gh release edit v1.0.0 --draft=false

# Delete release
gh release delete v1.0.0

Automate releases

on:
  push:
    tags:
      - "v*"

jobs:
  release:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Build
        run: npm run build

      - name: Create Release
        uses: softprops/action-gh-release@v1
        with:
          files: dist/*
          generate_release_notes: true

GitHub Packages

# Publish npm package
- uses: actions/setup-node@v4
  with:
    registry-url: "https://npm.pkg.github.com"

- run: npm publish
  env:
    NODE_AUTH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

Checkpoint

Create a release with auto-generated notes and uploaded assets.

Lesson 8: GitHub API and Automation

Goal: Automate GitHub with the API.

Exercises

Using gh api

# Get repo info
gh api repos/{owner}/{repo}

# List PRs
gh api repos/{owner}/{repo}/pulls

# Create issue
gh api repos/{owner}/{repo}/issues \
  --method POST \
  --field title="New issue" \
  --field body="Description"

# GraphQL
gh api graphql -f query='
  query {
    viewer {
      login
      repositories(first: 10) {
        nodes { name }
      }
    }
  }
'

Webhooks

# List webhooks
gh api repos/{owner}/{repo}/hooks

# Create webhook
gh api repos/{owner}/{repo}/hooks \
  --method POST \
  --field name="web" \
  --field config='{"url":"https://example.com/webhook","content_type":"json"}' \
  --field events='["push","pull_request"]'

GitHub Apps and tokens

# Using GITHUB_TOKEN in Actions
- name: Create issue
  uses: actions/github-script@v7
  with:
    script: |
      await github.rest.issues.create({
        owner: context.repo.owner,
        repo: context.repo.repo,
        title: 'Automated issue',
        body: 'Created by workflow'
      })

Automation scripts

#!/bin/bash
# Close stale issues

gh issue list --label "stale" --json number --jq '.[].number' | \
  while read -r num; do
    gh issue close "$num" --comment "Closing stale issue"
  done

# Bulk label PRs
gh pr list --json number --jq '.[].number' | \
  while read -r num; do
    gh pr edit "$num" --add-label "needs-review"
  done

Checkpoint

Write a script that lists all open PRs older than 7 days and adds a “stale” label.

Practice Projects

Project 1: Open Source Ready

Prepare a repository for open source:

README with badges
Contributing guidelines
Issue and PR templates
CI workflow with tests and linting
Branch protection rules

Project 2: Release Automation

Set up automated releases:

Semantic versioning
Changelog generation
Build artifacts
Publish to GitHub Packages

Project 3: Team Workflow

Configure a team repository:

CODEOWNERS for different areas
Required reviewers
Status checks
Automated labeling

Command Reference

Task	Command
Create repo	`gh repo create`
Clone repo	`gh repo clone owner/repo`
Create issue	`gh issue create`
Create PR	`gh pr create`
Merge PR	`gh pr merge`
View runs	`gh run list`
Create release	`gh release create`
API call	`gh api <endpoint>`

GitHub Lesson Plan

Lesson 1: Repository Basics

Concepts

Exercises

Checkpoint

Lesson 2: Issues

Concepts

Exercises

Checkpoint

Lesson 3: Pull Requests

Concepts

Exercises

Checkpoint

Lesson 4: GitHub Actions Basics

Concepts

Exercises

Checkpoint

Lesson 5: Advanced Actions

Exercises

Checkpoint

Lesson 6: Collaboration Features

Exercises

Checkpoint

Lesson 7: Releases and Packages

Exercises

Checkpoint

Lesson 8: GitHub API and Automation

Exercises

Checkpoint

Practice Projects

Project 1: Open Source Ready

Project 2: Release Automation

Project 3: Team Workflow

Command Reference

See Also