Hub: Support Repository Templates

[jamiekyle-eb]

GitHub just added support for using repositories as templates it would be great if the hub create command supported them:

hub create -t user/repo

[odon0007]

这个鬼东东怎么用起来？

[jamiekyle-eb]

I'm translating the above as "How is this [adj: 鬼] thing used?" (Sorry I can't translate 鬼 in context)

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From the /generate page on a "template" repository, you can create a new repository by copying the contents of the template repository (without its git history I assume).

However, it appears that GitHub has not yet built an API endpoint for doing the same programatically. So hub may not be able to do this yet.

[odon0007]

I'm translating the above as "How is this [adj: 鬼] thing used?" (Sorry I can't translate 鬼 in context)

From the /generate page on a "template" repository, you can create a new repository by copying the contents of the template repository (without its git history I assume).

However, it appears that GitHub has not yet built an API endpoint for doing the same programatically. So hub may not be able to do this yet.

Yes, you're right.

[mislav]

Great idea, but the GitHub API doesn't support repo templates yet, and until it does, there's nothing that we can do from hub.

Closing to keep the issue backlog clean.

[mislav]

Will reopen as this will likely be re-requested more and people need to understand that we are unable to implement this right now, but that we might be in the future.

[kandice1978]

Seems simple

[mislav]

This API is now available under preview: https://developer.github.com/v3/repos/#create-repository-using-a-repository-template

However, it doesn't fit into how hub create is currently designed:

• The create command is meant to be used within an _existing local git repo_ to create a destination on GitHub for it to be pushed to. The rough steps are:
  
  
  
  1. Within existing working directory: git init;
  
  
  2. Create GitHub repository;
  
  
  3. git push -u origin HEAD.
  
  
• Creating a GitHub repo from a template would create a new repository that would _then need to be cloned locally_ into a new local git repo. The rough steps would be:
  
  
  
  1. Create a GitHub repository from template;
  
  
  2. Clone the new repository.
  
  

So you see, these operations would have completely orthogonal uses. This is why at the moment, I suggest that we don't extend the hub create command with template repo functionality.

[mislav]

An example of a manual approach for generating repositories from templates using hub api: https://github.com/mislav/hub-api-utils/blob/master/bin/hub-create-from-template

[ericovasconcelos]

It would be good to have it in hub directly. But thanks for the api solution.