Setting up your repository settings

Add jhudsl-robot as a collaborator

*You can skip this step if your course is in the jhudsl organization.

The Github actions in this repository need permissions to fully function. To this end, you need to add the jhudsl-robot as a collaborator on your repository with write permissions.

In your repository, go to your Settings > Collaborators & Teams and click on Add people. In the pop up window, search for and add jhudsl-robot.

Choose the write option then click Add jhudsl-robot to this repository.

Set up your Github Personal access token

The OTTR robots need permissions to run some of the actions. You only need to do this once as an organization (if this course is under jhudsl you don't need to do this step).

To give them permission for all the actions, you need to set a GitHub secret. Go to Settings > Secrets and scroll down to organization secrets or you can set this for each repository by creating a repository secret.

New repository secret button. Under name you must use GH_PAT:

For value: Create a personal access token following these instructions. Underneath Select scopes, check both repo and workflow. Then copy the PAT and save as the value. Your Github actions should all be able to run smoothly now.

Recommended repository settings

With your course repository set up, there are some settings recommended for development.

Using the issue guide checklist called New Course - Set Repository Settings, you can walk through the steps for setting up your repository as we would recommend.

Set up GitHub pages

Go to Settings > Pages.

• Under Source, pick the drop down menu and pick main and /docs.
• Then click Save.
• Lastly, check the box that says Enforce HTTPS at the bottom of this page.

Set up branches

* Don't set these settings right away! Wait a few minutes after starting your repository.

Go to Settings > Branches and click Add rule. This is only possible if you have GitHub Pro, Team, or Enterprise access. We recommend seeing if your organization can give you access if you do not already have access. To get this access through your organization, you will need to transfer ownership of your repo to your organization. See here about how to do this.

For Branch name pattern, put main.

Protect the main branch:
Then check the box that says Require pull requests before merging.

Make sure branches are updated:

• Check the box that says Require status checks to pass before merging.
• Underneath this also check the box that says Require branches to be up to date before merging.

After setting up these new branch items, click Create and Save changes.

After you submit a pull request if you haven't already done so, you will see several automatic checks happening. Don't be alarmed if this image looks slightly different as we make updates to the template:

These checks will do important things like:

• check that the all the urls actually take learners somewhere
• check that the code is styled using the styler package
• check that the spelling is correct using the spelling package
• create previews of the rendered versions of the course

See the Github Actions page for more details on these.

If you are a part of JHU DaSL then you can skip the next section and the issue about GitHub secrets and start adding more content!

Otherwise, you will need to do the next section to set up Git Secrets.

There is one more issue that you can do to get updates for template files.

We recommend that you do this but it is optional.

See this section to learn more about this or continue following along with the guide which will tell you how to set this up in a bit.

Note that you can comment and close the issues you finish if you click on the issue and scroll down to the comment field to add comments and click the close issue button if you are finished.