6. ARC Synchronization

The command arc sync handles multiple operations for your ARC in one step. It will

• track LFS files,
• stage changes,
• commit changes,
• pull changes from the remote repository, and
• push changes from your local repository.

Using the flag -m allows you to add a message to your synchronization, e.g.

arc sync -m "addition of proteomics dataset"

If no message was added, the Commander will generate a message by itself.

In case you have not yet connected your local repository to a remote one, you can specify the remote repository with the flag --repositoryaddress or -r in combination with a URL + ".git", e.g.

arc sync -r https://github.com/nfdi4plants/ARC/tree/Example-ARC.git

Note: If your local repository is not connected to a remote repository, arc sync will only track LFS files and stage and commit changes to your local repository. The Commander will not pull or push any changes.

6.1 Working on a second branch

Problem:

• No direct access rights to main branch

or

• Many people work on repository, making direct pushing to main branch chaotic

Solution:

Work on second branch, and contribute to the main branch using merge/pull requests

Workflow:

1. use arc get to get main branch of repo

2. work on arc

3. use arc sync -b secondbranchname

   This will create a commit with your newest changes and push the commit to a new branch with the given name.

6.2 Setting a git user

git always signs commits made with a name and e-mail adress of the user. These are then also used by GitLab and GitHub to assign the commits to user accounts. There are different ways to set this information.

Globally in git

The easiest way would be to do it directly globally using git:

• git config --global user.name "FIRST_NAME LAST_NAME"

• git config --global user.email "[email protected]"

Locally for each ARC

The problem with setting this information globally in git arises when you want to use different signatures for different repositories. E.g. when you develop software on GitHub and work on ARCs on the nfdi4plants GitLab.

For this case the ArcCommander has a set of features to ease your pain.

1. First set the information you want to use globally in the ArcCommander config:

   • Either using arc config edit -g and adding the following fields:
     • general.gitname="Full Name of User"
     • general.gitemail="Email of user"
   • or adding them directly in the cli:
     • arc config set -g -n "general.gitname" -v "Full Name of User"
     • arc config set -g -n "general.gitemail" -v "Email of user"

2. Then for each ARC you download or create, just use arc config setgituser

   This will automatically transfer the info stored globally in the ArcCommander config to the local git config of the ARC.