Project vs Repository in GitHub

Question

In GitHub  what is the conceptual difference between a project  that can be created inside a repository  and a repository    I ve seen several similar questions  here  here and here  in SO  but none of them explains what is a GitHub project  what is a GitHub repository and when to use each one of them    I would appreciate if someone can explain each term  and provide an example of when to use create each one  For instance  if I have several prototype applications  all independent of each other  what do I create in order to manage in an organized way the source code for all of them

User · Accepted Answer

GitHub recently introduced a new feature called Projects. This provides a visual board that is typical of many Project Management tools:

Project

A Repository as documented on GitHub:

A repository is the most basic element of GitHub. They're easiest to imagine as a project's folder. A repository contains all of the project files (including documentation), and stores each file's revision history. Repositories can have multiple collaborators and can be either public or private.

A Project as documented on GitHub:

Project boards on GitHub help you organize and prioritize your work. You can create project boards for specific feature work, comprehensive roadmaps, or even release checklists. With project boards, you have the flexibility to create customized workflows that suit your needs.

Part of the confusion is that the new feature, Projects, conflicts with the overloaded usage of the term project in the documentation above.

User · Answer

The conceptual difference in my understanding it that a project can contain many repo s and that are independent of each other  while simultaneously a repo may contain many projects  Repo s being just a storage place for code while a project being a collection of tasks for a certain feature    Does that make sense  A large repo can have many projects being worked on by different people at the same time  lots of difference features being added to a monolith   a large project may have many small repos that are separate but part of the same project that interact with each other - microservices  Its a personal take on what you want to do  I think that repo  storage  vs project  tasks  is the main difference - if i am wrong please let me know   explain  Thanks

User · Answer

This is my personal understanding about the topic   For a project  we can do the version control by different repositories  And for a repository  it can manage a whole project or part of projects   Regarding on your project  several prototype applications which are independent of each them   You can manage the project by one repository or by several repositories  the difference    Manage by one repository  If one of the applications is changed  the whole project  all the applications  will be committed to a new version  Manage by several repositories  If one application is changed  it will only affect the repository which manages the application  Version for other repositories was not changed

User · Answer

GitHub Repositories are used to store all the files  folders and other resources which you care about   Git Project   It is also one of the Resource in Git Repository and main use of it is to manage the projects with a visual board  If you create a project in Git Repository it create a visual board like a Kanban board to manage the project   In this way  you can have multiple projects in a repository

User · Answer

In general  on GitHub  1 repository   1 project  For example  https   github com spring-projects spring-boot   But it isn t a hard rule   1 repository   many projects  For example  https   github com donhuvy java examples  1 projects   many repositories  For example  https   github com zendframework zendframework  1 project named Zend Framework 3 has 61   1   62 repositories  don t believe  let count Zend Frameworks  modules   main repository   I totally agree with  Brandon Ibbotson s comment      A GitHub repository is just a  directory  where folders and files can   exist

User · Answer

Fact 1  Projects and Repositories were always synonyms on GitHub Fact 2  This is no longer the case   There is a lot of confusion about Repositories and Projects  In the past both terms were used pretty much interchangeably by the users and the GitHub s very own documentation  This is reflected by some of the answers and comments here that explain the subtle differences between those terms and when the one was preferred over the other  The difference were always subtle  e g  like the issue tracker being part of the project but not part of the repository which might be thought of as a strictly git thing etc   Not any more   Currently repos and projects refer to a different kinds of entities that have separate APIs    https   developer github com v3 repos  https   developer github com v3 projects    Since then it is no longer correct to call the repo a project or vice versa  Note that it is often confused in the official documentation and it is unfortunate that a term that was already widely used has been chosen as the name of the new entity but this is the case and we have to live with that   The consequence is that repos and projects are usually confused and every time you read about GitHub projects you have to wonder if it s really about the projects or about repos  Had they chosen some other name or an abbreviation like  proj  then we could know that what is discussed is the new type of entity  a precise object with concrete properties  or a general speaking repo-like projectish kind of thingy   The term that is usually unambiguous is  project board    What can we learn from the API  The first endpoint in the documentation of the Projects API    https   developer github com v3 projects  list-repository-projects   is described as  List repository projects  It means that a repository can have many projects  So those two cannot mean the same thing  It includes Response if projects are disabled        message    Projects are disabled for this repo      documentation url    https   developer github com v3      which means that some repos can have projects disabled  Again  those cannot be the same thing when a repo can have projects disabled   There are some other interesting endpoints    Create a repository project - POST  repos  owner  repo projects Create an organization project - POST  orgs  org projects   but there is no    Create a user s project - POST  users  user projects   Which leads us to another difference   1  Repositories can belong to users or organizations2  Projects can belong to repositories or organizations  or  more importantly   1  Projects can belong to repositories but not the other way around2  Projects can belong to organizations but not to users3  Repositories can belong to organizations and to users  See also    https   help github com articles about-project-boards    I know it s confusing  I tried to explain it as precisely as I could

User · Answer

With respect to the git vocabulary   a Project is the folder in which the actual content files  lives  Whereas Repository  repo  is the folder inside which git keeps the record of every change been made in the project folder  But in a general sense  these two can be considered to be the same   Project   Repository

[git] Project vs Repository in GitHub

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