So, you've used CatDoes to bring your app idea to life. What’s next?

Connecting your project to GitHub is the single most important step you can take to turn your AI-generated app into a real, professional software asset. It’s the bridge from a creative idea to a manageable, scalable product. This isn't just about backing up your code; it's about adopting the same proven workflows that power the world’s best tech companies.

Why You Should Sync Your CatDoes App With GitHub

Let’s be honest, syncing to GitHub can feel like an extra, technical step you’d rather skip. But trust me on this one: it's a foundational move that pays off immediately. Whether you’re a solo founder tinkering on the weekends or a small team moving fast, this integration gives you stability, control, and a clear path to growth.

The biggest win right out of the gate is a solid version history. Think of it as a safety net. Every time you push a change, GitHub saves a snapshot of your entire project. If a new feature breaks something or you decide an update was a bad idea, you can rewind to a working version in seconds. No more "undo" nightmares or lost work.

Adopt Professional Development Workflows

Syncing with GitHub also means you get to use the same collaboration tools that are standard across the entire software industry. These aren't just for massive teams at Google. Even as a solo developer, structured workflows will save you countless headaches.

The core idea is working in branches. Instead of making changes directly to your main app, you create a separate branch to experiment. This unlocks a few key advantages:

• Safe Experimentation: Got a wild idea for a new feature? Build it on a branch. If it’s a home run, you merge it into the main project. If it’s a disaster, you just delete the branch. No harm done.

• A Clear Project History: Each time you save your work, you write a "commit message," a short note explaining what you changed and why. This creates a running logbook of your app's entire evolution, which is incredibly valuable when you need to remember why you made a certain decision six months ago.

• Effortless Team Collaboration: When you're ready to bring on a partner or a freelancer, the process is clean. They simply "pull" the latest code, create their own branch to work on, and then submit a "pull request" for you to review before their changes are merged.

By integrating CatDoes with GitHub, you’re elevating your project from a cool AI creation to a scalable, version-controlled software asset. It's the moment your idea gets serious and ready for real growth.

Connect to a Global Standard

Finally, this simple act connects your project to the undisputed global standard for software development. GitHub isn't just a tool; it's an ecosystem. It’s home to over 100 million developers, and it's used by more than 90% of Fortune 100 companies.

When your CatDoes app lives on GitHub, you're plugging into this massive community. This makes it far easier to attract technical talent, integrate with other developer tools, and follow industry best practices. As you can discover more about GitHub's widespread adoption, you'll see that this connection essentially future-proofs your app, building it on a foundation the whole world trusts.

Establishing a Secure Connection to Your GitHub Account

Before you can sync anything, you need to let CatDoes talk to your GitHub account. This isn't done with your regular username and password. Instead, we'll use a Personal Access Token (PAT), which is a much more secure way to grant specific, limited permissions.

Think of a PAT as a keycard for a single room, not the master key to the entire building. Instead of giving CatDoes access to your whole GitHub account, you generate a unique token that only allows it to perform the actions it needs for your app's repository. This is a critical security step that ensures CatDoes can manage your code without ever touching other sensitive parts of your account.

Generating Your Personal Access Token

First things first, you'll need to head over to your GitHub account settings. Look for the "Developer settings" section, which is where you'll find everything related to tokens. You're going to generate a "fine-grained" token, which gives you much more precise control over permissions than the older "classic" style.

When you create the new token, give it a name you’ll recognize later, something like "CatDoes App Sync." You'll also need to set an expiration date. I’d recommend setting it for something reasonable, like 90 days, so you have a natural reminder to review access periodically.

Now for the most important part: defining the token's scope.

This is the screen where you'll tell GitHub exactly which repositories this token can access and what it's allowed to do there.

Setting the Right Permissions

For CatDoes to work its magic, it needs permission to manage the code inside your app's repository. Specifically, you need to grant it "Read and write" access under the "Contents" permission. This is what lets the platform perform essential Git operations like pushing your code changes and pulling down updates from your team.

Be intentional here. You want to follow the principle of least privilege. Avoid granting broad permissions like "Administration" or "Issues" unless one of your specific workflows absolutely requires it. Keep it focused.

Important Takeaway: Once you generate the PAT, GitHub will only show it to you one time. You have to copy it immediately and store it somewhere safe. If you navigate away or lose it, you can't get it back. You’ll have to generate a completely new one.

With your new token copied, jump back over to your CatDoes project settings. Find the GitHub integration area and simply paste the token into the designated field. CatDoes handles the rest, encrypting the token and storing it securely to authenticate with GitHub's API on your behalf.

This one-time setup establishes the secure handshake needed for all future sync operations. Following these protocols is fundamental to building a reliable app, a concept we explore in more detail in our guide to mobile app security best practices. With the connection live, you're all set to start managing your code.

Your Core GitHub Sync Workflow in CatDoes

Once you’ve got that secure connection locked in, it's time to put it to work. Day-to-day, syncing your CatDoes project with GitHub boils down to two simple actions: pushing and pulling. Getting into a rhythm with this is the secret to keeping your AI-generated code perfectly aligned with your version-controlled repository.

Just think of your GitHub repo as the official "source of truth" for your application. CatDoes is the workshop where you’re creating amazing new things with AI, but GitHub is the library where the final, official version is stored. Every sync action you take is about making sure those two places are in lockstep.

The Art of the Push

A push sends your changes from CatDoes to GitHub. This is what you'll be doing most often.

Let's say you've just prompted the AI to add a new feature, redesign a screen, or squash a bug. Once you're happy with how it looks in the CatDoes preview, you'll commit those changes with a quick message like "Add user profile page component" and hit the sync button. This bundles up all the new code and sends it straight to your GitHub repo, creating a new checkpoint in your project's history. It’s the digital equivalent of submitting your finished work.

A consistent push workflow ensures every meaningful change you generate in CatDoes gets saved to your version history. This builds an incredible safety net, letting you track progress and jump back to a previous version if you ever need to.

When and Why to Pull

A pull does the exact opposite: it fetches the latest code from GitHub into CatDoes. You might do this less frequently, but it’s critical, especially if you're working on a team or if manual code edits are part of your process.

Here’s a common scenario: a developer on your team clones the repo and makes a quick fix directly in their code editor. They push that change to GitHub. Your CatDoes project is now officially out of sync because it doesn't have that new manual fix.

To get everything aligned again, you’d perform a pull. CatDoes will check the repository, see the new commit from your teammate, and download the changes into your project. This is essential for making sure any outside contributions are reflected in your workspace before you ask the AI to build on top of them.

To make it even clearer, here's a quick reference for when to use each action.

Push vs Pull Sync Actions in CatDoes

This table is a quick reference guide to help you understand when to use each primary sync action and its effect on your project.

Ultimately, these two actions form the foundation of a solid, professional workflow.

Establishing a Repeatable Process

Your daily routine should become a simple, repeatable loop that keeps your work consistent and conflict-free. By building these Git actions directly into your creative cycle, you're not just syncing files. You're adopting a professional standard for software development.

This approach is the operational heart of the CatDoes and GitHub integration, and it’s a core principle you'll find in many continuous deployment best practices.

Using Branches And Pull Requests For Team Collaboration

Once you get past a simple push-and-pull rhythm, you start to unlock the real power of a professional development workflow. For teams, or even solo creators who want to experiment without breaking things, branches are non-negotiable. They let you build new features in a safe, isolated space before ever touching your main application.

Think of your main branch as the live, stable version of your app. When an idea for a new feature strikes, you create a new feature branch right from the CatDoes interface. This gives you a clean copy of your project where you can make changes freely, knowing that nothing you do will impact the main codebase until you’re ready.

Creating An Isolated Feature Branch

The process is refreshingly simple. Before you prompt the AI to build your next big idea, you just create and switch to a new branch. Give it a descriptive name like feature/user-profile-redesign. Once you’re on this new branch, every change the AI generates and every commit you make is recorded there, and only there.

This isolation is incredibly valuable. It means you can chip away at a big, long-term feature without any pressure, while a teammate simultaneously knocks out a quick bug fix in a completely separate branch. Neither of you will step on the other's toes, which keeps development humming along and prevents unstable code from ever disrupting your project.

This diagram shows the basic flow of pushing code from CatDoes to your GitHub repository.

Whether you're working on the main branch or a feature branch, everything follows this fundamental push-and-pull cycle to stay in sync with GitHub.

The Power Of The Pull Request

Okay, so your new feature is built, tested, and looking great on its branch. Now what? It's time to merge it back into the main project. This is where a Pull Request (PR) comes in. It’s a formal request to merge one branch into another. You’ll create the PR directly within your GitHub repository.

A PR immediately opens a space for collaboration. Your teammates can review the new code, leave comments, and suggest improvements right where the changes were made. This peer review process is a cornerstone of quality software development, helping catch bugs and ensure consistency before any code goes live.

Research from GitHub and Accenture found that modern development workflows that include practices like PRs can slash development cycle times by a staggering 75%. For mobile apps, that kind of speed is a massive competitive advantage.

Once the PR gets the green light, the feature branch is merged, and your new code officially becomes part of the main application. This structured approach, combining isolated branches with collaborative reviews, is a best practice for teams of any size.

As your team gets into a groove, knowing how to safely manage Git branches and keep your repository clean becomes vital. And for those looking to build even faster, it’s worth exploring the various rapid app development tools that work beautifully with this kind of workflow.

How to Troubleshoot Common Sync Issues

Even in the most polished workflow, a sync error is going to pop up eventually. It’s just part of the process. The good news is that most of these issues are common and surprisingly easy to fix.

When you try to sync with GitHub and hit a roadblock, it's almost always one of a few usual suspects: permissions, authentication, or conflicting edits. An error doesn't mean your whole setup is broken. It's usually just a sign that your local CatDoes project and the remote repository have drifted out of alignment. The key is to figure out why, fast, so you can get back to building.

Dealing With Authentication Failures

One of the first errors you’ll likely encounter is an authentication failure. You'll see a message like "authentication failed" or "permission denied" when you try to push a change. This is a dead giveaway that the problem lies with your Personal Access Token (PAT).

For security, these tokens are designed to expire. If yours does, GitHub will immediately reject any sync attempts coming from CatDoes. It's a simple fix:

• Head back to your developer settings on GitHub.

• Generate a new Personal Access Token, making sure to give it the exact same permissions as the old one.

• Copy the new token and paste it into your CatDoes project's integration settings.

This quick refresh re-establishes the secure handshake between the two platforms and should get you back up and running instantly. A pro tip? Set a calendar reminder a week before your token expires to avoid any surprise disruptions.

A failed push due to authentication is actually a good thing. It confirms your security is working correctly and that only authorized tools can touch your repository, which is exactly what you want.

Resolving Merge Conflicts

The term "merge conflict" sounds more intimidating than it is. It's a totally normal part of working on a team and simply means changes were made to the same part of a file in two different places at the same time. Git doesn't know which version is the "right" one, so it pauses the sync and asks for your help.

Picture this: you change a button's color from blue to green in CatDoes. At the same time, a teammate pushes a commit to GitHub that changes the same button's text. When you try to sync, Git will see both changes to the same block of code and flag a conflict.

Modern code editors and GitHub's own interface make resolving this pretty painless. They'll show you both versions of the code side-by-side. You get to decide which one to keep: your version, the remote one, or a manual blend of both. Once you’ve made your choice and committed the resolution, the sync will continue as if nothing happened. The trick is to tackle these conflicts as soon as they appear to keep your project history clean and accurate.

Common Questions About Syncing With GitHub

Let's walk through some of the most common questions we get about the CatDoes GitHub sync. These are the things that come up in real-world workflows, so getting them clear upfront will save you a ton of time.

Can I connect a CatDoes project to a GitHub repo that already exists?

Yes, absolutely. When you kick off the sync process in CatDoes, you’ll see two options: create a brand-new repository or link to an existing one in your GitHub account.

If you decide to link to a repo that's already there, just know that CatDoes will perform an initial push to get it up to speed with your app's current code. This first push will overwrite what's in there. Because of that, it's a good idea to either start with a fresh, empty repo or use one you're okay with dedicating completely to your CatDoes project.

What happens if I make manual code edits directly in GitHub?

This is where the real power of the integration kicks in. Many teams have a hybrid workflow where AI generates the foundation and developers make manual tweaks. We designed the sync for exactly that scenario.

If you or a teammate pushes code changes directly to your GitHub repository, CatDoes doesn't get confused or overwrite them. The next time you open that project in CatDoes, you just hit 'pull' from the sync menu. CatDoes will fetch all the latest changes from GitHub and merge them intelligently into your workspace.

We treat your GitHub repository as the single source of truth. The pull function ensures your CatDoes workspace is always perfectly aligned with any manual commits, preventing anyone's work from getting lost.

This flexibility is essential for teams where some people are prompting the AI and others are in the code.

Does syncing with GitHub also back up my Supabase backend?

Great question, and an important distinction to make. The answer is no.

The CatDoes GitHub integration is focused entirely on your frontend application code, specifically the React Native Expo project that runs your mobile app. Your Supabase backend, which includes your database, authentication rules, and any serverless functions, is a completely separate system. You manage all of that directly on the Supabase platform using their own workflows and backup tools. Think of the GitHub sync as version control for your app's source code only.

How does CatDoes handle different Git branches?

Working with branches is a core part of any serious development workflow, and CatDoes is built to handle it seamlessly. Inside the CatDoes editor, you’ll find a simple dropdown menu that lets you select which branch you want to work on.

Any changes you request from the AI will be committed only to the branch you have selected. You can switch between branches anytime, say, from a new-feature branch to your main branch. When you do, CatDoes automatically pulls the latest code from that specific branch in your repository. This lets you safely work on multiple features at once without destabilizing your main codebase.

Ready to combine the speed of AI-driven development with the power of professional version control? CatDoes is the fastest way to turn your idea into a production-ready app. Start building for free today.