github - Git working fork with updates

Question

I wonder if the following scenario is possible with Git.

I forked someone's repository.

I do want to work on my own copy of the repository with getting updates from the initial repository.

Occasionally, I do want to release my code and send pull request to initial repository.

I am not sure if this possible, if yes please describe shortly what should I do.

Answer 1

It is possible, but a couple of best-practices would involve:

• doing your modification in your own branch (that you can push to your fork)
• updating the branches common with the original repo with a git fetch upstream (upstream being the name of a remote referencing the original repo you forked)

• rebasing your own branch on top of the updated original branch:
  (See "git fork is git clone?")

  git checkout myBranch
  git rebase upstream/master
  

• if you do a PR, try to make it a small one (with a few commits in it), focus on a specific feature, rather than doing a large one, with many commits and many changes in it.

See more at "couples tips on pull requests".