Gsoc 25 Week 03 Update by Nikhil-Bhatt

Author: BeNikk

src/constants/MarkdownFiles/authors/nikhil-bhatt.md

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 # About Nikhil Bhatt
 Nikhil Bhatt is a Google Summer of Code 2025 contributor and full stack product developer with a strong focus on building impactful, scalable tools.
+
 ## Experience
 
 - **GSoC 2025**: Music Blocks v3 Backend Development

src/constants/MarkdownFiles/posts/2025-06-22-gsoc-25-Nikhil-Bhatt-week03.md

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+---
+title: "GSoC '25 Week 03 Update by Nikhil Bhatt"
+excerpt: "Set up backend routes for creating and viewing pull requests on MusicBlocks project repositories."
+category: "DEVELOPER NEWS"
+date: "2025-06-17"
+slug: "2025-06-17-gsoc-25-nikhilbhatt-week03"
+author: "@/constants/MarkdownFiles/authors/nikhil-bhatt.md"
+tags: "gsoc25,sugarlabs,week03,nikhilbhatt"
+image: "assets/Images/GSOC.png"
+---
+
+<!-- markdownlint-disable -->
+
+# Week 03 Progress Report by Nikhil Bhatt
+
+**Project:** [Git backend for MusicBlocks](https://github.com/benikk/musicblocks-backend)  
+**Mentors:** [Walter Bender](https://github.com/walterbender), [Sumit Srivastava](https://github.com/sum2it)  
+**Reporting Period:** 2025-06-15 – 2025-06-21  
+
+---
+
+## Goals for This Week
+
+- Add backend support for creating pull requests when someone edits a forked project.
+- Allow project maintainers to view all incoming pull requests to their original project repo.
+---
+
+## This Week's Achievements
+
+1. **Created Pull Request Route**
+   - Built a route where students who forked a project can submit updates.
+   - The backend automatically creates a **new branch on the original repository**, updates the `projectData.json`, and creates a pull request from that branch to the main branch.
+   - We use the original repository info stored in `metaData.json` of the forked project.
+   - Only two values are required from the frontend: the name of the fork repo and the updated `projectData`.
+
+2. **View All Pull Requests Route**
+   - Added another route that **lists all open pull requests** for a given repository.
+   - Maintainers can use this to preview incoming contributions.
+   - In the future, clicking “merge” on the frontend will trigger the same `edit` route we already have, safely updating the project.
+
+---
+
+## Challenges & How I Overcame Them
+
+- **Challenge:** GitHub’s API does not allow opening pull requests between two repos in the **same organization** (which is our setup for MusicBlocks).  
+  **Solution:** Instead of trying to PR from a forked repo to the original, we create a **new branch directly in the original repo** and update content from the backend. Then we make a PR from that new branch to `main`.
+
+- **Challenge:** Figuring out the cleanest flow with the least frontend involvement.  
+  **Solution:** Used the backend to handle metadata extraction, branch creation, commit, and PR creation automatically, so the frontend only needs to pass minimal data.
+
+---
+
+## Key Learnings
+
+- Understood GitHub's limitations when working with forks in the same organization.
+- Learned how to manage pull request creation with custom branches and automated commits.
+- Improved backend architecture by centralizing logic and reducing frontend responsibility.
+
+---
+
+### An interesting problem to solve
+
+Currently, since all project repositories (original and forks) are created under the same GitHub organization using a central GitHub App, all commits and pull requests appear to be made by the original repo,and since our setup is such that we create Pull request through a branch in the original repository (We cannot do that from a repo in the same org account) we cannot keep a track of which fork's commit was merged. 
+
+Workaround
+
+As a workaround, fork project's details can now be stored in the `metaData.json` of each forked project. When viewing pull requests via the custom route, this data can be used to show who contributed what.
+
+
+## Next Week's Roadmap
+
+- **Start frontend development**: Add interfaces for users to view, submit, and merge pull requests.
+- Add UI indicators for forked projects and pull request status.
+- Improve display of `projectData` in pull request previews.
+
+---
+
+## Resources & References
+
+- **GitHub PR API Docs:** [docs.github.com/rest/pulls](https://docs.github.com/en/rest/pulls/pulls)
+- **Octokit REST Library:** [github.com/octokit/rest.js](https://github.com/octokit/rest.js)
+- **Backend Repo:** [musicblocks-backend](https://github.com/benikk/musicblocks-backend)
+
+---
+
+## Acknowledgments
+
+Big thanks to my mentors and the Sugar Labs community for their guidance and patience. Also grateful to GitHub’s documentation which helped solve tricky API issues.
+
+---