Using GitHub Template Repositories to Automate Script Deployment

Managing multiple repositories can be a challenge, especially when you need to ensure that each one includes certain common scripts or configurations. GitHub’s template repositories feature can help streamline this process. In this post, we’ll walk through how to use a template repository to automatically include a gh_submodule_sync.sh script in every new repository you create.

Prerequisites

• GitHub CLI: Ensure you have the GitHub CLI installed. You can find installation instructions here.
• Existing Repository: We’ll use an existing repository gh_submodule_sync as the template.

Step 1: Clone the Repository

First, clone your existing repository:

git clone https://github.com/justin-napolitano/gh_submodule_sync.git
cd gh_submodule_sync

Step 2: Mark the Repository as a Template

Next, mark your repository as a template using the GitHub CLI:

gh api -X PATCH /repos/justin-napolitano/gh_submodule_sync -f is_template=true

This command sets the is_template flag to true, designating your repository as a template.

Step 3: Create New Repositories from the Template

You can now create new repositories using your template. Here’s how to do it:

gh repo create new-repo --template=justin-napolitano/gh_submodule_sync --public --confirm

Replace new-repo with the name of your new repository. This command creates a new repository based on your template.

Step 4: Clone the New Repository

Finally, clone your new repository to your local machine:

git clone https://github.com/justin-napolitano/new-repo.git
cd new-repo

Your new repository will include all the contents of the template repository, including the gh_submodule_sync.sh script.