GitHub Features

GitHub is more than just a code hosting platform — it provides a set of powerful collaboration and project management features.
Understanding these features helps teams organize work, discuss ideas, and automate workflows.

1. Issues

GitHub Issues are used to track tasks, bugs, feature requests, and improvements.
They act like a lightweight ticketing system for your repository.

Key Features:

• Title + description (supporting Markdown).
• Labels (categorize issues: bug, enhancement, help wanted).
• Milestones (group issues by project phase/release).
• Assignees (assign team members).
• Cross-linking between issues and PRs.

Example workflow:

1. Create an issue for a new feature:
   “Add dark mode support”.
2. Assign a developer and add labels.
3. Developer creates a PR that references the issue:

Fixes #12

→ When merged, the issue automatically closes.

2. Discussions

GitHub Discussions provide a space for open-ended conversations that don’t fit in Issues or PRs.

Use cases:

• Q&A (community support).
• Brainstorming ideas.
• Sharing announcements.
• Best practices & documentation discussions.

Features:

• Categories (Q&A, Ideas, General, Announcements).
• Upvotes for helpful answers.
• Mark accepted answers (in Q&A).

👉 Tip: Use Discussions for community talks and Issues for actionable tasks.

3. Pull Requests (PRs)

PRs are the main way to contribute changes.
They let maintainers review, discuss, and approve code before merging.

• Supports inline code review & comments.
• Supports checks (CI/CD workflows, code linting, tests).
• Can be linked to Issues (closes automatically when merged).
• Supports merge strategies: merge commit, squash, rebase.

(See our detailed Pull Requests & Forks guide for full workflow.)

4. Projects

GitHub Projects is a Kanban-style project board to organize work.

Features:

• Columns: To Do → In Progress → Done.
• Link Issues & PRs directly to project cards.
• Custom fields (priority, size, status).
• Automations (move cards when PR is merged/issue closed).

👉 Use Projects for agile workflows, sprints, or roadmap planning.

5. Actions

GitHub Actions is GitHub’s CI/CD platform.
It automates workflows directly in your repo using YAML files in .github/workflows/.

Examples:

• Run tests on every PR.
• Deploy app to production when code is merged.
• Lint & format code automatically.
• Schedule cron jobs (daily builds, reminders).

# .github/workflows/test.yml
name: Run Tests

on: [push, pull_request]

jobs:
test:
  runs-on: ubuntu-latest
  steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v3
    - name: Set up Node.js
      uses: actions/setup-node@v3
      with:
        node-version: 18
    - run: npm install
    - run: npm test

6. Wiki

GitHub Wikis allow you to write long-form documentation for your project.

• Each page is versioned with Git.
• Great for tutorials, architecture notes, FAQs.
• Supports Markdown.
• Separate from the main codebase but linked to the repo.

Use the Wiki for detailed documentation, and keep the README.md for project overview.

Example: GitHub Wiki

For instance, the AI-Lab Wiki demonstrates how teams can organize documentation, tutorials, and guides in a dedicated space linked to their repository.
Explore their Wiki for examples of structured project documentation.

7. Security & Insights

GitHub provides features to keep repos secure and track contributions:

• Dependabot Alerts: Alerts for vulnerable dependencies.
• Code Scanning: Automated static analysis.
• Insights Tab: Contribution graphs, community activity.
• Branch Protection Rules: Require PR reviews, tests to pass before merging.

8. Notifications

Stay updated with:

• Watching a repo → get all activity updates.
• Custom notifications → choose Issues, PRs, or Discussions only.
• Email / Web / Mobile push notifications.

9. GitHub Pages

You can host static websites directly from your GitHub repo. Popular for project documentation, portfolios, and blogs.

• Source can be main branch or docs/ folder.
• Works with Jekyll, Hugo, VitePress, or custom static sites.
• Free hosting with a github.io domain.

For a step-by-step guide to setting up and customizing your site, see GitHub Pages documentation.

Summary

GitHub offers more than version control.

• Issues → track tasks/bugs.
• Discussions → open-ended conversations.
• PRs → propose and review changes.
• Projects → Kanban boards for workflow management.
• Actions → CI/CD automation.
• Wiki → long-form documentation.
• Pages → host static websites.
• Security & Insights → keep repos safe.

Together, these features make GitHub a complete collaboration platform for developers and teams.