GitHub for Designers — TDP Workshop

2026 TDP

GitHub for

Designers

Why this matters TDP

Why does a

designer need

GitHub?

Because your design handoff is now a PR — and the way you ship matters as much as what you ship.

Agenda TDP

On the

agenda

01 Your toolchain

02 Git verbs

03 Repo overview

04 Branching

05 Committing

06 Pull Requests

07 Gotchas

→ click any topic to jump there

Your toolchain TDP

Setting up

your environment

Ghostty

Your terminal. Cleaner than Cursor for designers.

GitHub

Where the code lives — branches, PRs, reviews.

Loom

Record walkthroughs and attach them to PRs.

Vocabulary TDP

The verbs you'll use

Your work locally

only you see this

git status Show what's changed since your last commit.

git log Show the history of commits.

git commit Save a checkpoint of your work locally.

git stash Temporarily set aside uncommitted work.

Branching

organizing where you work

git branch Create or list branches.

git checkout Switch to another branch.

Sync with remote

talks to the team's repo

git pull Fetch the latest changes from the remote.

git push Upload your commits to the remote.

Review & merge

the most drastic actions

pull request (PR) Propose your changes for review.

draft PR Open a PR signaling it's still WIP.

git merge Combine one branch into another.

squash and merge Collapse all commits into one, then merge.

The happy path what you'll actually do, in order

git pull → git checkout -b → git commit → git push → open PR

Repo overview TDP

When you

open a repo

01Top tabs — Code, Issues, Pull requests, Settings
02Branch dropdown — switch or create branches here
03File tree — your project's actual files and folders
04README — the project's homepage and intro

→ press arrow / click to reveal

01

02

03

04

Branching TDP

Branching:

never on main

Always branch off main — or the branch the client tells you to use
Use names that signal what the work is for
Match the client's existing convention if there is one
When unclear, ask the engineers — once, upfront

Use the pr-branch-naming skill ↗

→ press arrow / click to reveal

Committing TDP

Commits are

like saving

Think of it as Google Docs autosave, not "final version". Commit often, with small messages. Rolling back becomes trivial. Reviewers can follow your thought process.

$ git log --oneline

a3f8b21 feat: tighten button padding

d8c4e90 feat: add empty state for dashboard

b2a1f73 fix: heading typo on landing

9c1e2a4 feat: wire copy from Figma

e9b5d18 feat: initial layout scaffold

Pull Requests TDP

PRs are your

proposal to ship

A pull request bundles your branch — every commit, every change — into one proposal to merge into main. It's where your work gets seen: reviewers scan the diff, leave comments, and approve before anything goes live.

$ gh pr list

#42 Empty state for dashboard

#41 Tighter button padding on landing

#40 Pricing copy from Figma

#39 Heading fixes — landing page

#38 Initial /settings scaffold

Pull Requests TDP

Your PR is

your design handoff

01Follow the client's PR / branch naming convention
02Keep them under ~500 lines — split into stacked PRs if bigger
03Make it visual — screenshots, a Loom, or the preview URL
04Use draft PRs for prototypes or WIP

Use the branch-line-count hook ↗

→ press arrow / click to reveal

01

02

03

04

Gotchas TDP

Things that

will happen

01Merge conflict — pull latest, resolve in editor, commit, push
02Push rejected — you forgot to pull before starting
03Your branch is behind main — rebase or merge main into yours
04Committed to main by accident — stop, ask an engineer, don't push

→ press arrow / click to reveal

$ git pull Auto-merging README.md CONFLICT (content): Merge conflict in README.md Automatic merge failed; fix conflicts and then commit the result.

$ git push ! [rejected] main -> main (fetch first) error: failed to push some refs to 'https://github.com/user/repo.git' hint: Updates were rejected because the hint: remote contains work that you do hint: not have locally.

$ git status Your branch is behind 'origin/main' by 3 commits, and can be fast-forwarded. (use "git pull" to update your local branch)

$ git status On branch main Your branch is ahead of 'origin/main' by 1 commit. (use "git push" to publish your local commits)

2026 TDP

Now ship

your first PR

github.com/thedesignproject/agent-skills designproject.io