Managing Larger Data on a GitHub Repository

Abstract

This package provides a simple work-around by allowing larger (up to 2 GB) data files to piggyback on a repository as assets attached to individual GitHub releases. piggyback provides a workflow similar to Git LFS (“Git LFS,” 2018), in which data files can be tracked by type and pushed and pulled to GitHub with dedicated commands. These files are not handled by git in any way, but instead are uploaded, downloaded, or edited directly by calls through the GitHub API (“GitHub API version 3,” 2018). These data files can be versioned manually by creating different releases. This approach works equally well with public or private repositories. Data can be uploaded and downloaded programmatically from scripts. No authentication is required to download data from public repositories.