GitHub GitHub Universe 2020: Enterprise - Developer Experience, 11 Dec 2020

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From YouTube: Productivity++ with GitHub for Mobile, Desktop, and CLI - GitHub Universe 2020

Description

Presented by Billy Griffin, Staff Engineering Manager, GitHub

Billy has been at GitHub for the past two years, working in Product and now in Engineering, managing the GitHub Desktop and GitHub CLI teams. He started his career in the U.S. Navy serving as a Surface Warfare Officer. Since leaving the Navy in 2013, he cofounded a company, Base Directory, helping service members and their families find information on U.S. military bases. Immediately prior to joining GitHub, Billy spent two years at 18F helping the federal government build more user-friendly websites and applications. He lives in Denver, Colorado, and loves the mountains and nature.

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A

Thanks so much for that wonderful intro, all the hosts are cracking me up and I've been loving all the talks over the past few days, I'm billy griffin and I'm part of the team that builds github's, client applications more specifically, github cli desktop and mobile. We've shipped a lot of stuff in the past year to bridge the gaps you've encountered and github mobile and github cli are brand new this year as a result of feedback from our users.

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This talk is called productivity plus plus, and I want to share with you how these github apps can help you be more productive and make building things on github more fun.

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So why should you even care about being productive? Well, it helps you get more done when you're working and provides you more flexibility, so you can find a better balance between doing your best work and finding space for life outside of work.

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When I think about productivity, there are three themes that I like to focus on productivity from our perspective at github is about helping you reduce context, switching helping you focus on what matters most to you and bringing github to wherever you are.

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You may not have heard, but github is a new command line, interface or cli. It just came out of beta two months ago, but if you love github and you do anything at all from your terminal, you should totally be using it to illustrate why let's walk through a scenario, to help demonstrate how github, cli or gh helps you reduce context. Switching.

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We'll start by using githubcli to find all issues assigned to me with the command gh issued list dash dash assignee billy griffin, which is my super original github handle.

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Here we can see that there are three issues assigned to me next, let's take a closer look at that. First, one using gh issue view.

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With this, we can see a lot more detail about the issue, the author, how long it's been open any labels and, most importantly, we can read through the body of the issue and find out a little bit more about. What's going on after taking a closer look, this looks like something I can probably fix.

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So I'm going to go ahead and do that works on my machine, so we'll call it fixed when we're ready to share our work and get feedback it's time to create a pull request, and you can do so right from githubcli using.

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Ghprcreate, you can add the title for your pr and choose from the pr templates for your repo. In this case we fixed a bug.

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So let's pick the bug fix template, but it's important to note that any templates for your repo will be populated in this in this uh list to choose from, and we can even fill out a more detailed pr body using our preferred editor and write in markdown and when we're all done, we can add metadata like labels and assignees if we want or even preview our pr in the browser prior to submitting it in this case, especially since our goal is to reduce context, searching we'll just go ahead and submit it right here from our terminal and our pr submitted.

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We get this nice link as output if we want to go check it out in the browser or we can move on to whatever's next.

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Now that I've created my pr it's time to check in on the status of other prs in the repo that might need my attention, we'll use ghpr status to do just that.

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I love this overview that pr status gives me with approval and check status right in my terminal. Let's go ahead and check out the one where someone has requested my review.

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How do I check out that pr locally again, I don't know if you're anything like me, but I always forget how to check a pr out and get according to the stack overflow answer after furiously googling every single time. I guess I need to look up the pr number, the branch name and then remember a couple steps and get well.

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Maybe I'm destined to have to look this up every single time wishing wasting precious time and energy on something so trivial, but instead of that back and forth or needing to go to the browser at all, I can just take the pr number that I saw in ghpr status and use gh to check out the pr.

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This also sets up the branch locally, so I'll be able to just push to the branch using git push without having to do anything extra and get now. I want to take a quick look at what's changed in the pr to orient myself and see how complex it is. I can do that with ghpr diff.

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Here we can see what's changed just like the files change tab on github.com's pr page, especially for smaller pr's that don't have a ton of files or changes. This is a great way to quickly get your arms around what a pr is doing without having to leave your terminal and if everything looks good, we can go ahead and approve the pr right here in our terminal and there we go. It's approved.

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Now that the pr is approved and good to go, we can even merge.

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Github cli allows you to merge in whatever way works best for you or your project. As we know, preferences and norms differ across projects. So, if you're, the type of person who always rebases or always squashes and merges, then you can do that right here and if your project mandates one or the other, it's no problem at all and say goodbye to all those branches. Just hanging around on merged pr's that are still open.

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Github cli allows you to optionally, delete the branch on github and on your local machine, so you can avoid having to go back and clean up you after yourself later and now, we're ready to submit.

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Now the pr is merged, our branches are deleted and we're back on the main branch.

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And, finally, when everything is in a good place and we're ready to share what we've built with the world, we can use github cli to create a github release.

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It walks you, through the steps just like the pr creation flow did and just like that. We completed the full workflow end end-to-end from finding an issue to work on to releasing software without ever having to leave our terminal.

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In addition to supporting end-to-end workflows, as we just walked through together, github cli is also incredibly flexible, allowing you to customize it to suit your own needs. For example, one of our community contributors shared how they combined the alias command with the api command to view all draft prs for a repo using gh. You can use the same pattern to build custom aliases for anything you can do with the github api. So if gh doesn't have it go ahead and add it for yourself as another example of just this, let's take the command.

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We just started that we started out with to list all the issues assigned to me. So, instead of having to type all that out each time, it's a pretty verbose command. We can just alias it to a command. Let's call it gh my issues and our alias is added.

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Now that we have that alias available, we can run the gh my issues command and get the exact same output. We saw earlier.

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Improving your productivity isn't just about getting the most work done to stay at your best. You also need to take breaks and get out into nature. Get up cli. Has you covered for that too, with your repo's very own garden, customized, with each commit as a wildflower, whenever I'm having a tough day at work or when I'm confronted with a particularly tough challenge? I love to spend some time by the stream check out my wildflowers and just unwind with gh repo garden. It's a delightful experience and I hope you'll try it out too.

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Moving on to our second theme we'll talk about how github's apps help you focus on what matters most to you and like we did with github cli in the first theme, we'll use github desktop to illustrate how you can do just that, if you're unfamiliar with github desktop it's a graphical user, interface or gui. That makes it easier to work with your github repositories on your local machine.

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If you haven't tried it or haven't tried it recently, I'd encourage you to do so as major improvements over the past few years have led to github desktop recently crossing 1 million users monthly.

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Git is an incredibly powerful tool that enables you to do so much, but in the words of my colleague, mislove git is simply too hard. Github desktop takes all of the complexity of git and distills it into the most important things. So you can easily overcome those points of friction and focus on what matters most to allow you to build. The most amazing things remember how we talked about how cumbersome it is to check out a pr and git well from any pr page.

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You can check it out locally in desktop with just one click and similarly from any repo page, you can clone the repo and get set up locally in desktop just by clicking open with github desktop.

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So now, we've cloned the repo made some changes and with other tools, those changes are pretty transparent to you, but require you to navigate somewhere else to see them get a desktop. Instead, just puts the changes you just made right in front of you in a gorgeous diff and if you prefer split diffs to unified diffs github desktop. Has you covered there too?

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A feature I absolutely love on. Github is protected branches, it helps ensure you, don't accidentally push to a branch. One thing we'd see people do and get, though, is committing to a protected branch locally and then realizing they have to move those commits to another branch. Just to be able to push them. Github desktop helps you avoid that pain by gently nudging you to switch to a different branch prior to committing.

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Similarly, I struggle with stashing in git I'll often have like 30 stashes just hanging around, and I have no idea what's actually in any of them and it's too cumbersome to go look at them individually.

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So, eventually, all that work just gets abandoned, get a desktop, makes stashing visible if you're in the middle of a feature, and your co-worker asks you to take a quick look at their branch. You can just choose to leave your changes behind and when you come back, the changes are right there for you and you can decide whether you'd like to restore them to pick up where you left off or discard them and start anew in the vein of not having to remember to do things in a particular order.

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Desktop allows you to do a chunk of work and then afterward gives you the ability to organize your commits. However, you'd, like by simply selecting a set of lines to include in each of your commits in this case. Amanda's first commit is one set of lines in a file, and then her second commit. Is this another set of lines? So you can organize your commits, however, you'd like after the fact one thing, that's important is to make sure you stay up to date with changes from the default branch, so you're not diverging too much.

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I've shown you several features within the ui, but another thing I love about desktop is that once you understand what's possible, there are keyboard shortcuts for most actions. So, with just a couple key presses, we can merge the default branch into our feature branch.

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One thing I personally use to struggle with and get is merged conflicts and we've hit one here, but with github desktop you get a nice guided flow that walks you through each conflict displays your progress as you work through resolving each of them and gives you a nice bit of confidence with those green check marks when all the conflicts are resolved and you're all set to commit your merge and when your work is done and you're ready to share github desktop, doesn't make you think about what you have to do next, as you can see here when you've committed- and you push your branch, you see this nice suggestion that it's time to create a pr since we're done with our work, let's switch gears and check out someone else's pr.

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We saw how difficult checking out a pr was earlier and even inside github desktop. It's also just incredibly simple, to see what pr's are open for your repo, what their check status is and check any of them out just by clicking on them.

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So I checked out a coworker's pr and there's something that I noticed. That needs a little bit more thinking I'll reach out to them. We can pair on getting across the finish line now we're done and we're ready to commit, and since this is work we paired on I'll include my co-worker as a co-author on the commit.

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This is really difficult to remember how to do in git, but github desktop makes it as simple as adding their handle in the co-author field, and that's it.

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We think sharing credit is a really important part of building an inclusive and fun team environment and everyone is more productive when they feel like their contributions, are valued so go ahead and use that co-author field.

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We just saw how github cli helps you reduce context, switching and how github desktop helps you focus on what matters most to you. The final theme I want to show you is how github meets you where you are github's mobile app was released on ios and android just this year and if you haven't tried it, you have to download it right. When my talk is done, it's amazing. Let's walk through a couple scenarios of how github mobile brings get up to where you are first and most.

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Obviously, you can easily triage your github notifications on the go in pre-coveted times, I'd be on the bus or on the train want to make sure that when I got to my desk, I'd already have a sense of what I should work on and not get bogged down in a bunch of notifications that aren't important in the gita mobile app. I can save notifications to come back to and mark notifications, as done when I no longer need them.

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One of the things I love about the mobile app is push notifications, but I don't want to be interrupted by push notifications for everything just for things that truly deserve my attention, so github's mobile app only sends you push notifications for app mentions in this case. Amanda is mentioning me on a pr where our colleague, steve is blocked, looks like something I should definitely check out tapping.

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The notification puts me right into the right context of the pr where I can read the description scroll through it see, what's changed and what needs to happen before we can get it merged. In this case it looks like it's just my review blocking the pr.

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So, let's take a look at what's changed right in the mobile app, I can scroll through the files mark files. Viewed as I go and even leave a review looks like this. One is just a markdown file, so it's pretty simple.

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I love that github's mobile app allows me to at mention others and even provides a beautiful autocomplete interface to do so so I'll write a quick message to accompany my review and now I'm ready to approve the pr.

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Now that the pr is approved, I see that it's ready to merge looks like everything is good to go. It's approved all the checks are passing and there are no conflicts.

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Let's go ahead and merge and just like we saw earlier with getupcli, you can merge using whatever method you're most comfortable with or whatever your project mandates, and that's it.

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To recap. What we just saw, I got a push notification from my phone on my co-worker at mentioning me. I went right to the pr by tapping the notification I reviewed and approved it, and I merged it all entirely from my phone github's mobile app, frees you from being tethered to your desk and puts github at your fingertips.

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We paired each of these themes with a single app, but it's important to note that all of github's, client apps helps you do each of these themes and I use all of them every single day.

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For example, we just look at how looked at how github for mobile meets you where you are, but for your development workflows if you're the type of person who just lives in your terminal, github cli is a great tool for you and similarly, if you're, a more visual person who gains confidence from being able to visualize exactly what you're doing github desktop is a great choice.

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Finally, here's how you can try them out. We only covered a small subset of what each of these apps enables for you. So we hope you'll see for yourself how you can become even more productive with githubcli github desktop and get up mobile and as of the last month, each one of these apps is available for github enterprise users, as well as github.com.

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To wrap up, none of this would be possible without the feedback, input and contributions from the users of github's apps. Since github cli is open source. We built gh credits to say thanks to everyone who has contributed, and I'd also like to personally say a thank you to all the engineers and designers here at github that made these products what they are and who continue to pour their hearts into making them even better every day and finally, to everyone who uses these products.

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Thank you for giving us the opportunity to continue to build tools that enable you to do the best work of your life.