We're having the same problem; not looking forward to the prospect of this still happening for my students' next practical exam.

A +1 to this problem. Our template repositories use GitHub Actions for autograding, not the GitHub Classroom tests. Actions seem not to be enabled on the new forked repositories by default. It is not an improved system if we then need to manually go into each student's repository to enable Actions again, so that they can run the tests.

FWIW, this now seems to be fixed for my currently active class. New repositories that students create using the GitHub Classroom link for this assignment are now being created with the Actions enabled, and tests being run without me needing to manually do anything. Thanks, whoever was responsible for that fix!

This issue still exists, but in a different way... The actions are enabled, that is true....

But we are no longer able to run an action when the student repo is created. We used to have an action that would copy issues from the template repo or get some files with student-specific config for anti-cheating checks...

Also, any action with a manual dispatch, i.e. "on: workflow_dispatch", won't show up until you edit and commit the .yml file with the workflow.

This happens to me when I create a new, empty repo and try to use it as the template. Did you check that your repo has at least one commit?

Thank you Michael!
seems like this is the only way for it to pick up the starter repo properly.
However, I am still facing some issue with the autograding. Got any loopholes around that?

I second @w0244079's request. I don't like any "gold copy" to be in the same org where TAs are owners (TAs are students). I'm not sure this requirement was considered in the current solution.

Otherwise, if there was a way to prevent TAs from having all the permissions (e.g., to delete repos) in the classroom organization, it could mitigate the risk.

+1 on this, the "copy" is useless for my workflow. I am disappointed that we cannot continue to opt-out of this feature, or have the ability so that the students fork directly from the template

, this is a clumsy step in the wrong direction

I share your opinion on the current solution. I have been using GitHub Classroom for a number of years.

• Before: Students receive a copy of the template: This worked well. If I messed up and needed the students to update a file, it had to be done manually.
• Beta: Students fork the template (only during beta): This was near perfect and I was very happy with this solution.
• Current solution: For me this combines the weaknesses of both former solutions with hardly any benefits.

My request @github:

... the ability so that the students fork directly from the template

@RyanHecht Would it be possible to have both options when creating a new assignment?

• Create a copy of the template and create student repositories from there (current behaviour)
• Create student repository from the template (like during the opt-in beta)

In the UI to create the assignment there could be a checkbox/dropdown to select one option or the other.

I'll just chime in and say I agree that the new behavior of creating an intermediate repo to serve as the base from which student repos are forked does not seem like a very good solution to me. I don't understand what problem is being solved by this approach, and it makes maintenance of starter code a lot more challenging. As others have mentioned, now if I want to change something in the assignment after it's released (e.g. fix a bug in the starter code or clarify something in the README), I need to change it in two places: the original template repo from which the intermediate repo was created and then the intermediate repository itself. Updates to the intermediate repo require me to do the extra work of cloning that repo so I can maintain it alongside the original template repo. As we try to teach our students, this approach also introduces added possibility for making mistakes when trying to make the same changes in two different places.

Like others, I'd much prefer to at least have the option to have student repos forked directly from the original template repo (i.e. the behavior from the opt-in beta version of this feature). Then any updates I need to make after releasing the assignment can be made in one place.

agree

I have the same problem, there is some solution?

Hi folks! These issues should be fixed now with our GA release. Let me know if you're still encountering it!

Thanks for your work! Things are working OK, but I got caught by the following limitation:

The problem is that: (1) Github repository names are limited in length (to 100 characters, I think). (2) The new system creates a new repository named by appending the CLASSROOM name and the STUDENT-REPO-PREFIX-NAME and the STARTER-REPO name. Together, these sometimes exceeded the length limit and sometimes did not, hence my struggles above.

No problem for me now, but this seems likely to bite others.

Those changes are in place. The process is now:

1. You still have to start with a template, which must either be public or located in the classroom org.
2. When the assignment is created, GitHub Classroom creates a new repo from that template, with an automatically generated name (including the sluggified org display name and template repo name).
3. When the assignment is accepted, a fork of the repo created in step 2 is created for the participant.

Thus, if you want to make changes (after an assignment is created) that can be pulled into the student repos, they need to be made to the repo created in step 2.

Oh - I see that now, thanks. I think I was hoping there would be a setting to fork into students own profiles - same functionality as them manually forking (our existing workflow), but the added benefit of being able to manage/grade from GH classroom.

When I did it, it fu**ed up big time. The Job used the new "template" as template for the new classroom. Generating a template of a template of a template, should i update 3 Versions now? Started all over and made all assignments new... It's time to get a good CLI for classroom, enabling us to automate the process the way we want...

@graphics80 - I agree that the copies of copies are getting a little out of hand. I also just had a student accidentlly fork their own repo and then clone that, so they were pushing to a place I had no idea existed. We were able to reconcile by opening a PR and merging it in, but it would be nice if that couldn't happen.

There is a CLI extension with some limited functionality, but maybe that would be a good place to request or contribute additional features.

From my experience the only way that works is

1. Make the changes to the repo with the ugly name
2. Open the assignment in classroom and click "Sync assignments" (You may have to repeat it multiple times, often it times out after 15 students or so).
   This creates a pull request for each student repository
3. The students need to accept the pull request

One quick thing for you to try: clearing your browser cookies for GitHub and GitHub Classroom often tends to improve things for me regarding those 502 errors.

But I agree: the current state of GitHub Classroom is fragile and intermittent at best right now. By far my biggest concern is the complete silence from GitHub and the Classroom project manager (or lack thereof?) in any of these discussions or concerns the past several months ongoing. Not a good feeling regarding the future commitment from GitHub on this software. I expect an end-of-life announcement at any moment. It smells of abandonware, unfortunately. And regardless of the future, there's surely a way to improve dialog with committed users. :(

@RyanHecht

When you create the GitHub Classroom assignment, a new repository (with an automatically generated name, composed of the slugified combination of the org name, template repo name, and assignment name) is created from the template; let's call this the "assignment repository".

This assignment repository becomes the source for forks (the student repositories) that are created when students accept the assignment. You can make changes to the assignment repository, and create pull requests to bring those changes from the assignment repository into the student repositories; however, there is no such mechanism for propagating changes from the template repository into the assignment repository, as they have no common lineage. (You can do some low-level Git stuff to merge content between repos with unrelated lineage, but that will involve a fair amount of manual work, and isn't something that is readily done in the GitHub web interface.)

Indeed. In my experience I much preferred the old way that used the template repository (the original one).

This new assignment repository and forks has made things much more cumbersome and error-prone (e.g., merges from student repos to the assignment repo, that are then propagated to other students).

I don't understand why at least they didn't keep the option to use the old style template, and allow the new fork-based one as an option to those who want to use the sync mechanism in GH Classroom to create PRs (which also doesn't work well and fails many times)

It has happened to me once recently. No luck, need to delete assignment and re-start.

I also saw something even stranger: GH Classroom kept creating the template starting repo over and over with different numbers as suffixes

in my experience, the git commits are squashed from the template repository when the orga-template repository is created. if the orga-template, which is already in the student organization, is adapted, these commits are then also visible to the students in their fork.

template --> orga-template --> student-repo

That makes it a pain to fix the original content... What you're saying is that we need to re-do the org template each time we are adjusting the original assignment 😞

Yes it is a pain as the original template repo gets disconnected once GitHub classroom creates the org-template.

The motiviation, I understand, was to make it easier to push changes to student's repos, bc now they are just standard forks of the org-template. But it has not work well to me, the previous setup was much better. PRs on students is not that great, lots of problems and subltietes (rely on students doing it, merging issues, missing PRs, GH classroom failing to create PRs when lot of repos, etc.); much better to do a "semi-automatic" push to students repos if there are changes. 😢

Given that the new way is not clearly better than the old way, I asked to at least provide the two options: old and new, but don't think that will ever happen.