How to clone and run a Github repository#

tags: diataxis, how-to, pycharm, github, documentation#

  1. Install Pycharm

    • Community version is fine

  2. Open Pycharm

    • NOTE - I’m not sure exactly what you will see the first time you open the program. Add a comment here if there is some step I skipped

  3. In the top menu bar: Git > Clone…

    • a window will pop up

    • select the Repository URL tab in the left panel

    • Set:

      • URL: The url of the repo

      • Directory: The location on your computer where you want the contents of that repo to be cloned to

        • e.g. C:\Users\jon\freemocap

    • Click Clone button in bottom right

    • WAIT FOR IT TO COMPLETE IT’S STUFF BEFORE CLICKING AROUND

      • There’s a status bar in the bottom or the window

  4. Assuming the repo has a requirements.txt file, PyCharm should pop up a little Creating Virtual Environments Window (if it doesn’t, I’ll make another How-To stub for how to set the python interpretter. hint, bottom right of screen):

    • Location: will be auto-set to path to this rep\ venv

    • **Base Interpreter: ** will be set to your default Python installation

    • Dependencies: will point to the requirements.txt file

    • Click OK

    • Let it do it’s thing (status in bottom bar)

    • It might take a while if there are a bunch of packages

    • You should see something like Python 3.10 {Name Of This Repo} pop up in the bottom right

  5. Test that it worked!

    • Open a Terminal window in Pycharm (click Terminal in the bottom left of screen)

    • it should say (venv) on the left of each line (that means your interpreter is set to the python executable in the venv\ folder)

    • enter the command pip list to check your installed packages