How do I use GitHub-API to add a folder?

Question

Context: I have a node app with a mongo db attached to it. The db includes 2 structures, representing a file/folder system. Basically, have the tree structure representing the folders, and a contents structure representing the files.

The idea is to put this into GitHub using a js wrapper API for GitHub api (hopefully).

Question: I don't really get how GitHub API would accept this information.

• (a) When using the Git cli, I start with the git init, which sets up the git to begin with.
  Where is this step?
• (b) Looking here, a repo can be programmatically created. Awesome.
  So, is the idea that files and folders (metaphorically) get pushed up into this repo now, without the need of the git init step?
• (c) I get that what is getting pushed up are not files and folders, but rather commits. And that what is going up is content-addressable key pairs.

Can someone explain how this maps to a workflow that looks something like this:

1. New project => create repo
2. Setup some files and folders => push up changes
3. Make some update => push up changes ...

The bit about how folders works is what is confusing me.
Any pointers would be most appreciated.

Answer 1

The idea behind a DVCS (Decentralized VCS) is that you need to publish local commits to a remote repo.

So while you would need the GitHub API to create a remote repo, you would need only Git (not GitHub API) to add and commit locally, then push to the remote.

Answer 2

Creating a repo using GitHub API Notes

• The simple answer is that there are no folder's so to speak in GitHub, hence cannot be created.
• The fancy answer is that github is a content addressable key value system, hence no folders per say.
• No files either, it should be noted, everything is a commit-able blob basically.

How to use the above info: (1) Create a new repo, from Meteor (my use case).

    export const insertRepo = new ValidatedMethod({
      name: 'repos.insert',
      validate: RepoSchema.validator(),
      run({
        repoGeneralSettings,
      }) {
        if (Meteor.isServer) {
          const method = 'POST';
          const url = 'https://api.github.com/user/repos';
          const token = Meteor.settings.private.github.token;

          const headers = {
            'User-Agent': 'Meteor/1.0',
            'Authorization': token,
          };

          const data = repoGeneralSettings;

          return HTTP.call(method, url, { headers, data });
        }
      },
    });

(2) This looks like:

    POST /user/repos HTTP/1.1
    Host: api.github.com
    Authorization: 
    Cache-Control: no-cache
    Postman-Token: 39be029f-817e-62fb-c07b-3fedf69200d4

    {
      "name": "TestRepo1",
      "description": "This is a test repository",
      "homepage": "https://www.example.com",
      "private": false,
      "has_issues": false,
      "has_wiki": false,
      "has_downloads": true,
      "auto_init": true
    }

(3) And will return a 201 like so: https://developer.github.com/v3/repos/#response-2

(4) Delete is also quite simple. Please note that authorisations are (pretty obvious really) in the api relating to the token, as per this comment. This caused me some issues as I kept trying to change permissions of the owner, when what needed to happen was change permissions of the authorisation token. Ignore the below settings, and don't try to set them in the createRepo call.