Having a private branch of a public repo on GitHub?

156
votes

I have a public PHP project in a GitHub repo, which contains just one branch (master).

I want to have a separate branch/fork that is private for me (I have paid for private GitHub repos). I would like to be able to merge changes from the private branch/fork to the public repo, and vice versa.

With that in mind, here are my questions:

  1. Can I have a private branch on a public repo?
  2. Can I fork my own public repo into my own private branch/fork?
  3. If both of the above are possible, which is the best way forward? If neither, how should I proceed?
4
githubgit-branch
Isn't the best idea to fork your public repository as a private repository, where you create several branches that you don't push (back) to the public repository (and vice versa)? – Legolas
Thats what I am asking, I want to be able to create a copy of public repo but my updates to be private (unless i want to push specific things back to public one) – Lizard
24ways.org/2013/… – assylias
@assylias, could you put it as an answer? it's the best answer in my opinion, and I didn't pay attention to your comment before finding the article myself. – mbh86
@mbh86 It's not really an answer, being a link, and I don't have time to turn it into an answer. But if you want to use the content of that page to create an answer here (with a reference to the original site), it could certainly help other users and you would get my upvote :-) – assylias

4 Answers

100
votes
  1. Duplicate your repo.
  2. Make the duplicated repo a private one on GitHub.
  3. Clone the private repo to your machine
  4. Add a remote to your public repo (git remote add public [email protected]:...)
  5. Push branches with commits intended for your public repo to that new public remote. (make sure you don't accidentally commit private-only code)
  6. You can bring in changes to your public repo using 'git fetch public' and then merge them locally and push to your private repo (origin remote).
111
votes

Is it possible to have a private branch on a public repo?

On GitHub, your repository is either public or private; you cannot selectively "privatize" just a branch.

Can I fork my own public repo into my own private branch/fork?

You can clone your public repo to your local machine, branch as needed, and simply not push your "private" branches upstream (by specifying which branch to push to origin: git push origin master or git push origin branch-i-want-to-be-public:master).

Which is the best way forward/how should I proceed?

In order to take advantage of GitHub for both your public and private development, I would suggest forking your public branch within GitHub, changing the settings of the new fork to "Private", and then cloning the private version down to your local machine. When you're ready to make changes public, push everything up to your private fork on GitHub and then use pull requests to selectively copy branches to the public repo.

To make a repository private on GitHub, you must have an upgraded (paid) account. If you're only rocking the free account, you can still use the first process I suggested — clone public to local machine, branch, and push specific "public" branches to origin — without needing a private repo.

If you have a paid GitHub account, or are using another service that offers public and private forks and pull requests (such as BitBucket), then you can use either of the above approaches to make your code public.

13
votes

There is another solution which I find better as it doesn't result in duplicate repos on the same machine.

  • Make a branch with the stuff you want private.
  • Make a new repo on GitHub, set it to private.
  • Add new GitHub repo as a second remote to your repo on your machine.
  • Push private branch to second remote.

End result is 1 repository with 2 remotes. 1 public, 1 private.
Just need to be careful about which you push to so name accordingly.

0
votes

1.) Is it possible to have a private branch on a public repo

From what I know, no.

2.) Can I fork my own public repo into my own private branch

No, you can't fork a full repo (1-n branches) into a single branch. Well actually you could, if you just fork the one branch of the full repo. Just add it as a remote or start from a clone.

You might also be interested in Sparse checkouts.

3.) If both the above the are possible which is the best way forward

n/a

4.) If neither are possible how should I proceed?

n/a