Finishing the project¶

Having made these final changes to the project, restart Node-RED and open up the editor in your browser.

In the history sidebar you will see the files you've been modifying.

1. Click the + all button to stage all of the files in one go.
2. Click the commit button, enter a commit message and commit the changes.

At this point, your project's git repository is completely up to date.

Pushing changes to GitHub¶

The Node-RED projects feature supports adding a remote repository to push and pull changes to.

This step is entirely optional and is provided here for your information.

1. Create a new repository on GitHub. Do not initialise the repository with any content.

   Make a note of the HTTPS url for the repository.

   

2. Create a new personal access token for your GitHub account

   1. Open your GitHub Developer settings page to create a new Personal Access Token - https://github.com/settings/tokens
   2. Generate a new token with the repo:public_repo scope.
   3. Make a note of the token - you won't be able to see it again after you close that page.

   Access Token vs SSH

   Node-RED also supports SSH access to repositories, although it takes a few more steps to setup. We're going with the Personal Access Token as an easier approach for now.

3. Open the Project Settings dialog from the main menu in the editor (Projects -> Project Settings)

4. Switch to the Settings tab.

5. Click the add remote button to expand the 'Add remote' dialog. Enter the HTTPS url for your repository and click the Add remote button at the bottom.

   

6. Go to the Commit History section of the History sidebar tab.

7. Click the button with two arrows in - this opens the "Manage remote branch" dialog.

8. Click where it says "Remote: None" to expand the branch select box.

9. Type in origin/main into the box and then click the "Create branch" box.

   

   "master" vs "main"

   GitHub recently changed the default branch to be called main rather than master. If you are using a different git hosting service, check what the default branch is called and use that here.

10. Click the push button to push your changes to the remote. You will be prompted for authentication details. Provide your GitHub username and use the Personal Access Token you generated as the password.

    

    Storing passwords

    Node-RED only holds your remote repository username and password in memory - it does not store them anywhere. That will mean you will need to provide them again the first time you interact with the remote repository after restarting Node-RED.

11. All being well, after a few moments the "Manage remote branch" dialog should close and the commit list refresh.

    You should the most recent commit is has both the master and origin/main labels. This shows you your local repository is level with the remote.

    The button with the arrows (that opens the Manage remote branch dialog) now also shows how many commits ahead or behind your local repository is compared to the remote.