A few days ago, I searched on YouTube, how to create a LinkFree account. To my surprise, there was not a single video about it.

I thought why don't I make a video about it to teach others also. Starting open source and sending my first PR was a new thing to me. Fortunately, Dean Lofts asked me to join it and I happily said YES.

We set up the schedule on 18th January and then we had a joined session together about creating the LinkFree account. In the end, I tweeted about it and recorded a video tutorial also so that you can watch it here.

I got help from the LinkFree Quickstart guide and you can also follow the step-by-step process there.

Dean guided me and provided the solutions to the problems that he faced himself. You can check that out in my video also. I will also be discussing those problems in this blog.

Where to Start? 🤔

• First, log in to your GitHub account.

• Go to the LinkFree repo.

• The first thing that you need to do is to give it a star in order to support LinkFree and LinkFree deserves it also.

• Click on the upper right corner to fork this repository. A fork will add a copy of the LinkFree repo to your GitHub account.

• Once you click on the fork button, it will lead you to another page, in which you can change the repository name if you want to.

• Click the Create fork button.

• Once the repo is forked, go to the settings, then go to actions on the left bar and click on the Generals.

• After that, click on the disable actions option in the actions permissions menu.

• Click on the Save button.

• Move back to the LinkFree repo and click add on the new file option and select the "create new file" option.

Adding the data into a new file 📂

• After clicking on it, a new page will open in which you have to insert the data inside the data directory.

• Type data in the search bar and then write /. It will automatically include the data directory in a path.

• After that, give your GitHub username exactly as it is and then append .json (for example data/ibilalkayy.json).

• Inside a file write the content in a JSON format.

{
    "name": "Bilal Khan",
    "displayStatsPublic": true,
    "type": "personal",
    "bio": "College Dropout ➞ Self-Taught DevOps Guy | Open Source Contributor, Content Creator on YouTube & a Technical Writer at hashnode.",
    "avatar": "https://github.com/ibilalkayy.png"
}

field	type	description
name	string	Display the name on your Profile
displayStatsPublic	true or false	Display your page view counter and link click counter
type	personal / community	The type of account is it a single person or a community
bio	string	Your description of yourself
avatar	string	Take your GitHub profile link and append it with .png

• Now add the tags and the social links so that they appear on your profile.

{
    "name": "Bilal Khan",
    "displayStatsPublic": true,
    "type": "personal",
    "bio": "College Dropout ➞ Self-Taught DevOps Guy | Open Source Contributor, Content Creator on @YouTube & a Technical Writer at @hashnode.",
    "avatar": "https://github.com/ibilalkayy.png",
    "tags": [
        "Open Source",
        "DevOps",
    ],
    "socials": [{
            "icon": "SiYoutube",
            "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@ibilalkayy"
        },
        {
            "icon": "FaGithub",
            "url": "https://github.com/ibilalkayy"
        }
    ]
}

• Tags will show your skills.

• You can add multiple social links to your profile. These social links will be appeared with your avatar at the top.

• Now add the links of your socials in the profile.

{
/*
    Bio, tags and socials should be present here.
*/
    "links": [{
            "name": "GitHub: Checkout my Projects",
            "url": "https://github.com/ibilalkayy",
            "icon": "FaGithub"
        },
        {
            "name": "YouTube: Checkout my DevOps Videos",
            "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@ibilalkayy",
            "icon": "SiYoutube"
        }
    ]
}

• Once the links are added, the next step is to add the milestones.

• Milestones are the achievement that you have achieved.

• Milestones will be present in another tab of the LInkFree page.

• You can checkout my whole page content from here.

{
/*
    Bio, tags and socials and links should be present here.
*/
"milestones": [{
            "title": "Started YouTube",
            "date": "Jun 26, 2020",
            "icon": "SiYoutube",
            "color": "red",
            "description": "Started creating content",
            "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@ibilalkayy/"
        },
        {
            "title": "Created 60 Days Of DevOps Videos",
            "date": "Dec 1, 2022",
            "icon": "SiYoutube",
            "color": "red",
            "description": "Completed 60DaysOfDevOps Video Series",
            "url": "page url"
        }
}

Committing your changes 💡

• Scroll to the bottom and commit a new file by adding the commit message that starts with data: followed by your GitHub username (for example data: ibilalkayy)

• You can skip optional extended message if you want to.

• Click on the create new branch option and give the branch name or you can use the default branch name if you want to.

• Once you click on the create new branch option, the Commit new file button will be changed to Propose new file.

• Click on the Propose new file button and it will lead you to another page.

Merge the changes into the local repo 🐱

• Once you click on the Propose new file button, it will lead you to another page.

• This pull request will merge the changes in your local repository. You don't need to worry about the checks.

• Click on the Create pull request button and it will lead you to another page.

• Click on the merge pull request and then click on the confirm merge button to merge the changes in your local repository.

• Once it is merged, you can delete your branch according to your preference.

Merge the changes into the base repo 🦊

• Now go back to the LinkFree repo in your account.

• Click on the contribute button in the upper right corner and click on the open pull request button.

• Once it is clicked, it will lead you to the base repository of the LinkFree in order to compare the changes and send the pull request.

• In the title section, write data: GitHub username.

• In the description section, write:

## Changes proposed

Adding a profile to the LinkFree account

## Check List (Check all the applicable boxes) <!-- Follow the above conventions to check the box -->

- [x] My code follows the code style of this project.
- [ ] My change requires changes to the documentation.
- [ ] I have updated the documentation accordingly.
- [x] All new and existing tests passed.
- [x] This PR does not contain plagiarized content.
- [x] The title of my pull request is a short description of the requested changes.

## Note to reviewers

Thank you, for letting me create a profile on LinkFree.

• Once it is written, scroll down and click on the Create pull request button.

• Now you need to wait to have your Pull Request (changes) reviewed.

You will receive a GitHub notification when you have a comment, review or your Pull Request has been merged.

Once merged, your profile will be available a few minutes later on your custom url (for example: linkfree.eddiehub.io/ibilalkayy)

That's it. This is the first section of sending your PR to the LinkFree repo.

In the next part, I will adding the testimonials and events. I hope you liked this blog. If you have any questions then you can ask me in the comment section below. I will be happy to answer all your queries.

You can follow me on YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn also.

Happy Learning!