Allow to switch between forks.

[akosyakov]

In Gitpod some of our users would like to start from the parent repo, but then switch to own fork before creating the PR: gitpod-io/gitpod#4588

The thing is that such workflow only works if a user does not have permissions in parent repo, otherwise changes are just pushed to the parent repo branch.

I was thinking to add a command which allow to switch between forks and reconfigures remotes accordingly, i.e. upstream is parent, origin is a fork. But then it looks like that such command should rather to sit in this extension. Would you be open to the PR?

[alexr00]

@akosyakov so the flow would be this?

• User clones parent repo and does some work there. Maybe they make a branch with some commits, but they don't push the branch.
• User decides to make a PR, but wants to make a PR from a fork even though they have permission to push a branch to the parent repo.
• User runs this new command "Configure Remotes for Working from Fork" (name not final, maybe "Switch to Fork"?).
  • The extension changes the old origin to be upstream
  • The extension creates the fork (or not if it already exists) and makes this the origin remote

As you said, this extension already supports such a scenario for when the user doesn't have permission to push a branch to the parent repo, so it could makes sense to support the scenario even when the user does have permission in the parent repo.

How common do you think it is for a user to want to work from a fork even when they have permission to push to the parent (are there other examples besides the one in the issue you link)? My real concern is that this would be a command that 1 person uses.

[akosyakov]

The flow sounds good. I like Switch to Fork better.

How common do you think it is for a user to want to work from a fork even when they have permission to push to the parent (are there other examples besides the one in the issue you link)? My real concern is that this would be a command that 1 person uses.

I agree that such workflow when committers use forks to contribute to the main repo is rather uncommon. But some projects do it. There is another similar request: https://community.gitpod.io/t/how-to-specify-users-fork-instead-of-main-repository/639/6?u=akosyakov Maybe there could be workspace settings to enable only for certain repos.

[alexr00]

I would accept a PR for this. Do you want guidance on where changes would need to be made?

[AlCalzone]

To add to the previous comments: This extension currently guides contributors through the fork creation if they do not have write access to the main repo, which works fine.
If an external contributor already has a fork and tries to contribute to the main repo again, this flow fails with an error since a fork already exists.

Like I mentioned in gitpod-io/gitpod#4588 (comment), it would be ideal if the extension could detect this and automatically set up the local remotes so the contributor has origin as his fork and upstream as the main repo.