From adfe9a21438c09390c630be379c5bbf81633d7ce Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Silas Santini <70163606+pancakereport@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2025 17:52:48 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] explanation for different repos

---
 github/github-organizations.md | 6 +++++-
 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/github/github-organizations.md b/github/github-organizations.md
index c193f4b..e9a0238 100644
--- a/github/github-organizations.md
+++ b/github/github-organizations.md
@@ -14,7 +14,11 @@ DSUS has a [GitHub Enterprise instance](https://github.com/enterprises/dsus). DS
 DSUS has one GitHub Organization per class. For courses using DataHub, typically there are three repositories created each semester:
 * **Semester Website.** This public repository holds the Jekyll website for a single semester. Typically named semYY: `spYY | suYY | faYY`.
 * **Student Materials.** This public repository holds the Jupyter Notebooks for all components of the course including lectures and student assignments. Student assignments are usually the output of running `otter assign`. Each course has their own naming philosphy, but commonly `semYY-student` or `semYY-materials`
-* **Unreleased Materials.** This private repository is used for development of Jupyter Notebooks and other assignments. These repositories are typically named `semYY-dev` or `materials-semYY-private`.
+* **Unreleased Materials.** This private repository is used for development of Jupyter Notebooks and other assignments. These repositories are typically named `semYY-dev` or `materials-semYY-private` and may hold solutions to assignments. This repository is where `otter assign` is run.
+
+We recommend two materials repositories for assignment distribution workflows that utilize nbgitpuller to distribute assignments to complete on the DataHub. nbgitpuller will pull **all** materials from a repository onto the DataHub, so assignments that are not ready to distribute and solutions absolutely should not be in the repository used to generate nbgitpuller links. Additionally, classes have run into issues in the past with nbgitpuller's automatic merge behavior so we highly recommend that materials are only added to the Student Materials repository once they are 100% completely finalized. 
+
+Because nbgitpuller will pull all materials from a repository, we recommend that the Student Materials repository is as lean as possible. Do not add any extraneous files that are not needed for students to complete their assignments to this repository in order to save costs on the DataHub. 
 
 Other repositories in these organizations include exams, private grading repositories (grading scripts and *no student data*), textbooks, and guides.