HACKER Q&A
📣 habosa

How can I enable non-technical team members to edit files on GitHub?


We've got a bunch of configuration files for our app (JSON, YAML, etc) stored in a Google Cloud Storage bucket right now. We'd like to move these into GitHub so that they can be version controlled, tested, audit-logged, etc. in a way that all the devs on the team will find familiar.

However we also need some non-technical or semi-technical members of the team to be able to make updates to these files. Today they do that by just downloading them, making the updates, and re-uploading them. Now I am worried the idea of branches, PRs, merge conflicts, etc. will be a distraction and a drain.

Is there any system which makes this more approachable? We've used Netlify CMS for a similar task in the past but it's not quite right.


  👤 metadat Accepted Answer ✓
Get them signed in and give them repository permissions, then they can use the web file editor.

Edit:

Why would they need to update multiple files "at once". Tell them the "commit" button is like "save", and to enter "save" as the commit note. Yes, the git history log will become a trash heap, but this is the compromise when asking non-technical folks edit VCS files.

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.