RocketTheme Blog

GitHub is an extremely popular Git repository used by developers and programmers around the world to make organizing, managing, storing, collaborating on and sharing their projects easy.

In addition to its built-in features available through the website, GitHub’s flexible API makes it possible to leverage GitHub’s capabilities in apps and other Web-based solutions. One such solution, is IFTTT (If This, Then That).

IFTTT is essentially a giant cloud-based switchboard that connects different services to one-another. It makes it possible to do things like save every NASA Image of the Day to a designated Dropbox folder, automatically.

With a little creativity and some initial setup, IFTTT can work wonders to automate even some of your most tedious tasks.

In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the hundreds of potential recipes you can use to get the most out of GitHub.

Keep Track of Assigned Issues as To-Do Items

The iOS Reminders app is a popular choice for professionals that want to keep their to-do lists in one convenient place. With this recipe, you can link GitHub to this App so each issue you are assigned generates a reminder for you.

You can designate the reminder title, list it appears in, and the priority assigned to these reminders. If iOS isn’t your cup of tea, you can also do pretty much the same thing with GitHub-supported task managers like Toodledo.

Keep Track of Assigned Issues via Notifications

If you have the option enabled, GitHub can notify you about new issues, pull requests, and other activity on repositories you’re involved with.

Sometimes, things can get missed in the email inbox, especially when you’re working with a busy repository. If you’d like to receive notifications about new issues or pull requests, there are several ways to do this via IFTTT.

If you own an Android device, the above recipe will generate a notification each time someone assigns an issue to you on GitHub. This is a handy way to stay on top of your workload, even when you’re not logged in to GitHub directly.

You can also have these issues sent in other ways, such as via email, if you prefer a custom breakdown made possible by IFTTT than the default info set sent by GitHub’s email service.

If you prefer to receive SMS messages for important occurrences (like being assigned an issue) IFTTT can handle this. It will send you an SMS with information.

Find Out About a Specific Brand or User’s New Repositories

Let’s say you are very interested in any open source projects released by a particular brand or user (such as GitHub). With this recipe, you can receive an SMS every time a new repository has been created by that particular username or organization.

As with anything else on GitHub, the response is not limited to a single method. You can create variations of the recipe to notify you in many different ways, including iPhone notifications and by adding info to Evernote.

Keep Track of Starred GitHub Projects

GitHub is an excellent place to find new and interesting projects. Often, users will star several projects with the intention of going back to them later to work them in one of their own projects, or to add something to make them even better.

IFTTT makes it easy to keep tabs on these starred projects through a variety of channels. You can do this using the automatically-generated Atom feed GitHub makes available to all users (just visit https://github.com/(your user name).atom to see yours).

Evernote is a popular choice because it acts as a giant cache of reminders and useful information. You can also do the same via email, iOS reminders, or any other applicable channel supported by IFTTT.

Keep the Team in the Loop on Pull Requests

If you work with a team, keeping them in the loop about new pull requests, issues, and other important bits of information is important. Team communication solutions like Slack can connect with services like GitHub very easily.

These are just a handful of the possible ways IFTTT can help you connect GitHub with the services you use most. If anything, it can save you a step or two, saving you vital time and energy.

Join the Conversation

comments powered by Disqus