Using Github

Github is a place to store code. It can be used for private projects, sharing code privately between team members, and open source projects. It's the primary way Particle open source code is distributed, and is well-integrated with VSCode, making it ideal for use in Particle Workbench.

It maintains a historical record of changes you have made to your code, and provides a secure, off-computer backup.

It is also free for many individual users, with generous limits on how much code you can store.

Creating an account

If you do not already have an account, you can create one at https://github.com/. It only requires a valid email address to sign up.

Github code storage and sharing

Github is ideal for storing your code and sharing, and there are too many features to list here. A few terms you will encounter:

• clone is what you do to make a copy of a repository on your computer so you can build it
• fork makes a copy of a repository in your own repository so you can make modifications without affecting the original
• pull merges changes made in the original into your local version
• push copies your local modifications to the server for safe keeping

For libraries

The community libraries available using Particle: Install library are often stored in Github.

Many libraries are published with Apache 2.0, BSD, or MIT open source licenses which not only allow you to use them in closed source firmware, but also make modifications, if desired.

This is particularly useful with Github, because the concept of a fork allows you to make a copy of a library, make changes, and later merge updates from the original library. In some cases, you may want to contribute changes back to the original library.

You can find more information about libraries in firmware libraries.

For blueprints

Particle has a collection of reference firmware for various purposes at blueprints.particle.io.

Each of these designs includes instructions and firmware in a Github repository that you can clone or fork, allowing you to customize it for your own use.

CI/CD - Github actions

There is good support for continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) of fleet firmware using Github actions.