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Github Gist

  • GitHub Gists are a simple way to share code snippets with others.
  • Every gist is a Git repository, meaning it can be forked and cloned.
  • When you are signed in to GitHub and you create a gist, then it gets associated with your account and you can navigate to - Gist Homepage
  • Gists can either be Public or Secret. Public Gists show up in Discover.
  • Secret Gists don't appear in Discover but are not private. Anyone who has the gist URL can see the secret gist.
  • If you want to keep your code private, you might want to create a Private Repo.
  • Remember that you cannot convert a Public Gist into a Secret Gist, however, a secret gist can be changed to a public one by changing its visibility.
  • Since Gists are also repositories, you can clone/fork it, add changes to it, and see the update history.

Creating a gist

1. Sign in to GitHub​

2. Navigate to Gist Homepage​

3. Optionally, in the "Gist description" field, type a description for your gist.​

4. In the "Filename including extension" field, type a file name for your gist, including the file extensions.​

5. In the file contents field, type the text of your gist.​

6. Optionally, to create a public gist, click dropdown, then click Create public gist.​

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7. Click Create secret Gist or Create public gist.​

Forking and Cloning a gist

1. Each gist indicates which forks have activity, making it easy to find interesting changes from others.​

2. To clone a gist, select the Embed dropdown menu, then click Clone via HTTPS or Clone via SSH.​

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Viewing gist commit history

To view a gist's full commit history, click the "Revisions" tab at the top of the gist. You will see a full commit history for the gist with diffs.​

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Starring a gist

1. Navigate to Discover and select the gist you want to star.​

2. To star the gist, click ⭐ in the top-right corner of the page.​

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3. You can see all the gists starred by going to your Gist starred page.​

Note -​

You can also create a gist using the GitHub CLI. For more information, see "gh gist create" in the GitHub CLI documentation.

Alternatively, you can drag and drop a text file from your desktop directly into the editor.