Quick start on the Mac

This is the second quick start, for people who build software. You give the room a git repository on your Mac. It makes one small change and runs your tests, the reviewers check the change, and you open a pull request. Plan on ten minutes the first time.

Before you begin

• The Mac app is installed and signed in (see Quick start).
• You have a git repository with a test command that already passes. A small one is better for a first run.
• You have the GitHub command line installed and signed in. Run gh auth status in a terminal to check. The app opens pull requests through gh, so it never holds a GitHub password of its own.

Make one change

1. In the checklist in the empty window, press Check… next to "Check what this Mac has." You see which tools the Mac has, such as git, the assistant CLIs and your project's runtimes, and what each missing one would unlock.
2. Press Choose folder… and pick your repository. The folder chip under the composer now shows its name, and a branch chip and a worktree switch appear beside it. Leave the worktree switch on. The room then works on its own branch in a separate checkout, and your working copy stays as it was.
3. Check the two chips on the right of the composer. Depth reads Auto, which means each message picks how many seats and rounds it needs. Permission reads Auto too. Both are defaults, and they are right for a first run.
4. Ask for something small that a test can confirm. For example: "Add a test for the leap-year case in the date parser and make it pass. Run the whole test suite before you finish."
5. Watch the run. The lead's commands appear under its turn as it runs them. Each reviewer then runs its own checks, often your test suite, and its verdict lists what it ran.
6. If the room wants to run something Auto counts as dangerous, an approval card appears above the composer showing the exact command. Press Allow to let it run once, Always to stop asking in this workspace, or Deny. The seat is told it was refused and carries on without it.

Check it, then open the pull request

1. Open Diff in the title bar to read the change against the branch's base. The Summary card lists the commands that ran and how many passed.
2. In the strip above the composer, the git button shows the next step for the branch: Commit, then Push, then Create PR. Create PR does all three at once: it commits what is left, pushes the branch and opens the pull request, using the lead's closing message as the description.
3. You know it worked when the strip shows the pull request's number and the button now reads View PR.

If something goes wrong

• Create PR is greyed out. Hold the pointer over it to see why. Most often the branch has no commits yet, or you are on the main branch with nothing to commit.
• The pull request does not open. gh is not signed in, or it is signed in to an account that cannot push to this repository.
• The run stopped early. A spending ceiling or the round limit stopped it. The Summary says which, and a Keep going button continues from the point where it stopped.