Question

I am new to git and adjusting my workflow from SVN. The biggest problem I have is if I want to make a pull request into the master repo controlled by the project maintainer I have all these commits that I don’t want.

here is the steps I’ve been taking

git checkout develop
git fetch upstream
git merge upstream/develop

Modify file

git add /file
git commit file -m "some commit"
git push origin develop

Then on github make the pull request. Now when I make a pull request rather than it saying 1 commit 1 file its like 24 commits and has all these other people’s commits from upstream. What additional steps do I need to add or remove from my workflow that will allow me to just submit a pull request for the one file I need.

Answer 1

Try this workflow instead:

1. git fetch upstream
2. git checkout -b new_branch upstream/develop (creates a new branch and puts you on it)
3. Modify the files you want to change.
4. git add <files>
5. git commit -m "some message"
6. git push origin new_branch

Also, is the upstream’s main branch the develop branch? Usually the main branch is named master. If you’re basing your changes off a branch other than the main branch, pull requests might show any commits that are in the other branch but not the main one.