Git Basics Beginner’s Guide

Understanding version control tools is a foundational requirement for any aspiring software developer. The most prevalent version control by far is git. Unfortunately, version control and git can be intimidating for many beginners. Below is a git basics tutorial of everything you will need to get started:

Install Git: First, install git on your computer. Git is a version control system that gives collaborating teams the ability to track changes to their code. You can download git from the official website (https://git-scm.com/) and follow the installation instructions for your operating system.

Set up Git: After installing git, you must configure your username and email address. Open a terminal or command prompt and run the following commands, replacing “Your Name” and “your@email.com” with your information:

$ git config --global user.name "Your Name"
$ git config --global user.email "your@email.com"

Create a new repository: A repository, or repo, is a container for your project and its history. To create a new repo on GitHub, go to the GitHub website (https://github.com/) and click the “New” button. Give your repository a name and optionally provide a description. You can also choose to initialize the repository with a README file and a license.

Clone a repository: Cloning allows you to create a local copy of a repository on your computer. To clone a repository, click the green “Code” button on the repository’s page on GitHub. Next, copy the URL from the HTTPS option and run the following command in your command prompt or terminal:

$ git clone

This will create a local copy of the repository on your computer.

Make changes and commit: Now that you have a local copy of the repo, you can start changing the files. You can create new files, modify existing files, or delete files. After making changes, you must commit them to save the changes to your Git history. To commit your changes, run the following command:

$ git add .
$ git commit -m "Commit message"

The first command (git add .) stages all the changes you made. The second command (git commit -m "Commit message") commits the changes locally to git with a descriptive commit message.

Push changes to GitHub: To update the remote repository on GitHub with your local changes, you need to push your commits. To do that, run the following command:

$ git push

This will upload your commits to the remote repository.

Pull changes from GitHub: Version control was created to help with code collaboration across large or small teams and even on open-source projects. If others make changes on the remote repository, you can pull those changes back into your local repository using the following command:

$ git pull

This will fetch and merge the latest changes into your local repository.

$ git branch

To switch to a branch, use the following command:

$ git checkout

After making changes on a branch, you can merge those changes back into the project’s main branch – usually called “main” or “master” – using the following command:

$ git merge

Collaborating with others: GitHub allows you to collaborate on a project. You can invite collaborators to your repository, review and discuss code changes, and manage issues and pull requests.

These are just the first steps to get started with Git and GitHub. As you become more comfortable with git basics, you can explore more advanced features and workflows. Remember to refer to the official documentation and resources for more detailed information.