How to automatically fill in proposed code changes in the "Edit" URL for a GitHub file?

user_632454 0
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EDIT: See comments on Schwern's answer for what I'm looking for in general. It doesn't have to be exactly what I'm asking for in the question

I have a web app which is an editor. I would like users to be able to give me a GitHub file URL, my app would automatically load in the file from GitHub, and then I make a process for them which is as easy as possible to submit that change to GitHub again. Ideally the user wouldn't need to save / upload a file or do any copy/pasting.

GitHub has a URL scheme where you can go to an "Edit" page for a file, make your changes, and then create a PR or create a commit (depending on what you would like to do and your permissions). This is an example:

https://github.com/rails/rails/edit/main/README.md

Looking at the HTML for the form I see that some of the fields have names associated. Using those names I can auto-fill the commit title and description:

https://github.com/rails/rails/edit/main/README.md?message=foo&description=bar

But I can't find a way to automatically fill in/replace the actual contents of the file. Is there a way?

I realize that for some browsers URLs can only be so long (maybe that's not true anymore?), so maybe this isn't perfect. I'd also be open to other suggestions on how to accomplish what I'm looking for.

github
2 Answers
user_146600

There is no way to do exactly what you want. The ideal tool for this job is an OAuth App. However, creating one with the GitHub API requires that you store a client ID and a client secret, and there is no secure way to store the client secret in a frontend-only app.

Therefore, you'll need to create a backend to create the OAuth app so that you can issue credentials necessary to use the API on behalf of the user or to push data into the repository via the standard protocols.

As Schwern mentioned, you should not try to do this by driving the GitHub web interface. That isn't a stable interface and may break at any time.

user_87054320
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