Here’s how I generally configure my GitHub repositories.

At some point I should automate this - I’m hoping that GitHub will add some cool .github/config.yaml functionality and save me some work. Until then, this is my checklist!

In Settings:

• Options
  • Disable wikis because wikis are terrible for documentation
  • Disable squash merging and rebase merging - I want merge commits
  • Enable automatically deleting head branches - it’s easy to forget to do so manually
• Branches
  • Protect main
    • Require status checks to pass before merging - I want to make sure my changes don’t break things
    • Require branches to be up to date before merging - when combined with merge commits this gives me a nice clean history that preserves the individual history of branches (unlike squash commits) while making sure they’re applied in a single (merge) commit
    • Include administrators - because that’s usually me, these settings are for my own benefit, and GitHub still helpfully gives me an override button if I really need it
    • Disallow force pushes - on unmerged branches great, but I generally don’t want this on main!