How to Stick a Github Repository into Yunohost to Test out Bleeding Edge Stuff

From time to time you might need to install (ie. for testing) a non-stable version of software onto Yunohost. In many cases this can be both a scary and complicated process. With Yunohost, however, it’s shocking easy and almost feels ‘friendly’ like the rest of their user interface.

There are two ways to do it:

1. With a command line while you are SSH’d into your server or (if that sounded scary)
2. By copying/pasting a repository link a field in the Yunohost interface

Method 1: Via Command Line

1. SSH into your server with your YH admin user
2. Find the project repository you’d like to install. If you don’t have one and want to try for fun and randomness, they are located here. You can also find them by going to the main yunohost repository and then clicking an app and the Code button below the name. This should take you to the github page.
3. Once you’ve found the project / app you’d like to install on the github page, scroll to the bottom of the main project / app page and you will see a “Developer Info” section. In that section you will see a testing branch command like this:

sudo yunohost app install https://github.com/YunoHost-Apps/mautic_ynh/tree/testing --debug

Go ahead and enter that command, replacing it, of course, with the one you want / need.

Method 2: Via the Yunohost User Interface

1. Go to Applications
2. Click the green + Install button
3. Scroll to the very bottom and you’ll see Install custom app with a URL field.
4. Paste in the github URL which is everything from the https:// and before any –flags

Here is an example of what I would copy and paste from the example above:

https://github.com/YunoHost-Apps/mautic_ynh/tree/testing

5. click green install button
6. Wait while YH does it’s install thing

And that’s it.