🚀 Getting Started — Choose Your Workflow

This boilerplate supports two intentional workflows depending on how you want to use it.

Read this once. It prevents 90% of Git mistakes.

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🟢 Option 1: Clean Clone (Recommended)

Best if you want a fresh app with no connection to this boilerplate.

You get the code — not the history.

Steps

git clone https://github.com/Gideon-dev/my-next-boilerplate.git my-app
cd my-app
rm -rf .git
git init
git branch -M main
git add .
git commit -m "chore: bootstrap project"

Create a new GitHub repo, then:

git remote add origin https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/my-app.git
git push -u origin main

What this means

• ✅ Your app is fully yours
• ✅ No accidental pushes to this repo
• ✅ Clean commit history
• ❌ No automatic updates from this boilerplate

This is the safest default.

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🟠 Option 2: Advanced Clone (Opt-in Updates)

Best if you want to receive future improvements intentionally.

You keep a read-only connection to this boilerplate via upstream.

Steps

git clone https://github.com/Gideon-dev/my-next-boilerplate.git my-app
cd my-app
git remote rename origin upstream

Create your own repo, then:

git remote add origin https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/my-app.git
git push -u origin main

Pulling Updates Later

When you choose to update:

git fetch upstream git merge upstream/main

What this means

• ✅ You own your app
• ✅ Upstream is pull-only
• ✅ Updates are opt-in
• ❌ No automatic syncing

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🔑 Important Concept: What is upstream?

upstream is the original source of the boilerplate.

You:

• pull from it
• never push to it
• stay in control

upstream (boilerplate) ──▶ your repo ──▶ production

If you didn’t create the repo, it’s upstream.

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🚫 Things You Should NOT Do

• Do not push to upstream
• Do not expect automatic updates
• Do not treat this as a dependency manager

Git is the contract.

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✅ Recommendation

If you’re unsure, use Clean Clone.

You can always reintroduce upstream later — you cannot easily remove coupling once added.