DesignSafe-CI / DesignSafe-CI/DS-User-Guide

Document How to Enable "Cite this Repository" in GitHub

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@wesleyboar is already working on this.

Since Jan 14, 2026.

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Description

Objective

Write this new document. Goal is to describe to users how to enable "Cite this repository" in their GitHub repo. Specifically note this can be done BEFORE releasing a new version by knowing ahead of time the release tag (e.g. the version number), or AFTER a release (because GitHub repo web interface will reference the CITATION.cff in default branch).

Reference

These are notes I gave to a person who doubted the file could be set to the correct version before a release.

On GitHub, no need to create new version.

  • 2 days ago, I released version 1.0.0 of a software I maintain.
  • Today, I added a CITATION.cff (as generated from cff init site).
  • Now, I see "Cite this repository ▾" on the software home page.
  • And, version is still 1.0.0 (I did not update it).

My example is available at https://github.com/TACC/mkdocs-tacc . I added it before release via @PR 36: docs: cite this software for v1.0.0. And after releasing v1.0.1, I updated the CITATION.cff after the fact in https://github.com/TACC/mkdocs-tacc/commit/98c6d867.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

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