Managing GitHub Accounts and Notifications

Since the Engineeering Node of the Planetary Data System does open source development, we naturally use GitHub to not just host the code but also to track issues, plan releases, do continuous integration and delivery, host support forums, and more. That means you need a GitHub account.

A lot of people elect to get two GitHub accounts, one for their PDS (or JPL or NASA work), and one for any personal projects or other open-source communities. You've seen @alexdunnjpl and @collins-jpl and so forth, with jpl in their names.

However, that also means having two GitHub passwords, two two-factor authenticators, two sets of recovery codes, and so forth. And for some people, that's too much! 😉

The main reason for having a separate work account is so that work-related notifications, like new issues or pull-review assignments or GitHub Actions errors is to keep those notification in your work inbox, separate from personal project notifications.

However, there's is another way: you can have a single GitHub account and route your work-related messages to your work-related email while keeping your personal stuff still going to your ancient Yahoo email account (or whatever).

The Solution: Routing

The idea is to take any notification that's for a specific organization to which you belong and ensure those emails end up at your work address, while leaving other notifications going to your personal addresses. Of course, this isn't limited to just two email addresses—you can configure any number of routes for the various organizations to which you belong.

First, you need to verify all the email addresses you want to use with GitHub. Then you simply add the "routes".

Verifying Emails

To verify all the email addresses you want to use with a single GitHub account, first log into GitHub with that account, then click your avatar image and go to Settings.

From there, choose "Emails" under "Access" on the left, and under "Add email address", click Add. Then go to that email's inbox and click the "Verify email address" button. That's it. Repeat for all the other emails you'd like.

Adding the Routes

Once you've got all the emails you'd possibly want for GitHub notifications, you're ready to set up custom routes. To do so:

1. Return to Settings and this time click "Notifications" on the left
2. Click the "Custom routing" button
3. Click "Add new route"
4. Click the "Pick organization" drop-down and choose an organization
5. Click the "Select Email" button and then pick one of your verified email addresses
6. Click "Save"

That's it. Any notifications for that organization will now be routed to that address.

I Have Multiple Accounts! Should I Change?

Are you someone who made two or more accounts on GitHub to keep your notifications separate? There's no need to change to a single account now. If you're happy with multiple passwords, multiple authenticators, multiple sets of recovery codes and so forth, steady on! If it works for you, great. In fact, we probably recognize you with your @…jpl name by now.

But if you're new to the organization or to GitHub, you might simplify your life by going with a single account.