GitHub Made Crystal Clear · chapter 3: The GitHub flow: branch, pull request, merge
The GitHub flow as a cycle
2026-10-07
Steps 1 and 2 are Git on your machine. Steps 3 to 6 are GitHub. The only two commands that cross the line are push and pull.
Below: the paragraph from the book that builds this idea, then the diagram itself (Figure 3.1), and a recap. About a minute of reading.
Figure 3.1 draws those six steps as a cycle, and adds the thing the documentation leaves implicit: which half happens on your machine and which half happens on github.com. It is a zoom into figure 1.2 from chapter 1, so the shapes mean the same things they meant there.
Recap
- The idea: Steps 1 and 2 are Git on your machine.
- The picture: Figure 3.1, from chapter 3 ("The GitHub flow: branch, pull request, merge") of GitHub Made Crystal Clear.
- Go deeper: the chapter builds this step by step, with recipes and sources at the end.
This diagram is one of many in GitHub Made Crystal Clear.
Every chapter opens with the gist, draws the hard ideas, and ends with recipes and sources.
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