---
title: Work with GitHub
description: Shows you how to use GitHub to contribute to the Istio documentation.
weight: 2
aliases:
    - /docs/welcome/contribute/creating-a-pull-request.html
    - /docs/welcome/contribute/staging-your-changes.html
    - /docs/welcome/contribute/editing.html
    - /about/contribute/creating-a-pull-request
    - /about/contribute/editing
    - /about/contribute/staging-your-changes
    - /about/contribute/github
    - /latest/about/contribute/github
keywords: [contribute,community,github,pr]
owner: istio/wg-docs-maintainers
test: n/a
---

The Istio documentation follows the standard [GitHub collaboration flow](https://guides.github.com/introduction/flow/)
for Pull Requests (PRs). This well-established collaboration model helps open
source projects manage the following types of contributions:

- [Add](/docs/releases/contribute/add-content) new files to the repository.
- [Edit](#quick-edit) existing files.
- [Review](/docs/releases/contribute/review) the added or modified files.
- Manage multiple release or development [branches](#branching-strategy).

The contribution guides assume you can complete the following tasks:

- Fork the [Istio documentation repository](https://github.com/istio/istio.io).
- Create a branch for your changes.
- Add commits to that branch.
- Open a PR to share your contribution.

## Before you begin

To contribute to the Istio documentation, you need to:

1. Create a [GitHub account](https://github.com).

1. Sign the [Contributor License Agreement](https://github.com/istio/community/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#contributor-license-agreements).

1. Install [Docker](https://www.docker.com/get-started) on your authoring system
   to preview and test your changes.

The Istio documentation is published under the
[Apache 2.0](https://github.com/istio/community/blob/master/LICENSE) license.

## Perform quick edits {#quick-edit}

Anyone with a GitHub account who signs the CLA can contribute a quick
edit to any page on the Istio website. The process is very simple:

1. Visit the page you wish to edit.
1. Add `preliminary` to the beginning of the URL. For example, to edit
   `https://istio.io/about`, the new URL should be
   `https://preliminary.istio.io/about`
1. Click the pencil icon in the lower right corner.
1. Perform your edits on the GitHub UI.
1. Submit a Pull Request with your changes.

Please see our guides on how to [contribute new content](/docs/releases/contribute/add-content)
or [review content](/docs/releases/contribute/review) to learn more about submitting more
substantial changes.

## Branching strategy {#branching-strategy}

Active content development takes place using the master branch of the
`istio/istio.io` repository. On the day of an Istio release, we create a release
branch of master for that release. The following button takes you to the
repository on GitHub:

<a class="btn"
href="https://github.com/istio/istio.io/">Browse this site's source
code</a>

The Istio documentation repository uses multiple branches to publish
documentation for all Istio releases. Each Istio release has a corresponding
documentation branch. For example, there are branches called `release-1.0`,
`release-1.1`, `release-1.2` and so forth. These branches were created on the
day of the corresponding release. To view the documentation for a specific
release, see the [archive page](https://archive.istio.io/).

This branching strategy allows us to provide the following Istio online resources:

- The [public site](/docs/) shows the content from the current
  release branch.

- The preliminary site at `https://preliminary.istio.io` shows the content from
  the master branch.

- The [archive site](https://archive.istio.io) shows the content from all prior
  release branches.

Given how branching works, if you submit a change into the master branch,
that change won't appear on `istio.io` until the next major Istio release
happens. If your documentation change is relevant to the current Istio release,
then it's probably worth also applying your change to the current release branch.
You can do this easily and automatically by using the special cherry-pick labels
on your documentation PR. For example, if you introduce a correction in a PR to
the master branch, you can apply the `cherrypick/release-1.4` label in order to
merge this change to the `release-1.4` branch.

When your initial PR is merged, automation creates a new PR in the release
branch which includes your changes.

On rare occasions, automatic cherry picks don't work. When that happens, the
automation leaves a note in the original PR indicating it failed. When
that happens, you must manually create the cherry pick and deal
with the merge issues that prevented the process from working automatically.

Note that we only ever cherry pick changes into the current release branch,
and never to older branches. Older branches are considered to be archived and
generally no longer receive any changes.

## Istio community roles

Depending on your contributions and responsibilities, there are several roles
you can assume.

Visit our [role summary page](https://github.com/istio/community/blob/master/ROLES.md#role-summary)
to learn about the roles, the related requirements and responsibilities, and
the privileges associated with the roles.

Visit our [community page](https://github.com/istio/community) to learn more
about the Istio community in general.