Say I have a largish repo on GitHub, and I'm pushing from a computer with a very small amount of space. I'd like to push files one by one without having to keep every file from the remote. If I wanted to edit a file from the remote, I'd download it, make my changes, and then push back up to the remote. Is there any way to do this?
I want to do this programmatically for a web service.
You may be able to implement this using GitHub's API.
You can retrieve the content of a file given the path:
https://developer.github.com/v3/repos/contents/#get-contents
This method returns the contents of a file or directory in a repository.
GET /repos/:owner/:repo/contents/:pathFiles and symlinks support a custom media type for retrieving the raw content or rendered HTML (when supported). All content types support a custom media type to ensure the content is returned in a consistent object format.
And you can also update the content at a given path:
https://developer.github.com/v3/repos/contents/#update-a-file
This method updates a file in a repository
PUT /repos/:owner/:repo/contents/:path
You can also create new files, or delete files.
https://developer.github.com/v3/repos/contents/#create-a-file
https://developer.github.com/v3/repos/contents/#delete-a-file
The API is extensive - you can find much more in the documentation.