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Git Getting Started

Create your first repository

At the command line, first verify that you have Git installed:

On all operating systems:

git --version

Note

If nothing is returned, or the command is not recognized, you may have to install Git on your system by downloading and running the installer. See the Git homepage for exceptionally clear and easy installation instructions.

After installing Git, configure your username and email address. Do this before making a commit.

git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "mail@example.com"

Once Git is installed, navigate to the directory you want to place under version control and create an empty Git repository:

git init

This creates a hidden folder, .git, which contains the plumbing needed for Git to work.

Next, check what files Git will add to your new repository; this step is worth special care:

git status

Review the resulting list of files; you can tell Git which of the files to place into version control (avoid adding files with confidential information such as passwords, or files that just clutter the repo):

git add <file/directory name #1> <file/directory name #2> <...>

If all files in the list should be shared with everyone who has access to the repository, a single command will add everything in your current directory and its subdirectories:

git add .

This will "stage" all files to be added to version control, preparing them to be committed in your first commit.

For files that you want never under version control, create and populate a file named .gitignore before running the add command.

Commit all the files that have been added, along with a commit message:

git commit -m "Initial commit"

This creates a new commit with the given message. A commit is like a save or snapshot of your entire project. You can now push, or upload, it to a remote repository, and later you can jump back to it if necessary. If you omit the -m parameter, your default editor will open and you can edit and save the commit message there.

Adding a remote

To add a new remote, use the git remote add command on the terminal, in the directory your repository is stored at.

The git remote add command takes two arguments:

  1. A remote name, for example, origin
  2. A remote URL, for example, https://<your-git-service-address>/user/repo.git
git remote add origin https://<your-git-service-address>/owner/repository.git

Note

Before adding the remote you have to create the required repository in your git service. You'll be able to push/pull commits after adding your remote.

Clone a repository

The git clone command is used to copy an existing Git repository from a server to the local machine.

For example, to clone a GitHub project:

cd <path where you would like the clone to create a directory>
git clone https://github.com/username/projectname.git

To clone a BitBucket project:

cd <path where you would like the clone to create a directory>
git clone https://yourusername@bitbucket.org/username/projectname.git

This creates a directory called projectname on the local machine, containing all the files in the remote Git repository. This includes source files for the project, as well as a .git sub-directory which contains the entire history and configuration for the project.

To specify a different name of the directory, e.g. MyFolder:

git clone https://github.com/username/projectname.git MyFolder

Or to clone in the current directory:

git clone https://github.com/username/projectname.git .

Note

When cloning to a specified directory, the directory must be empty or non-existent.

Tip

You can also use the ssh version of the command: 

git clone git@github.com:username/projectname.git
Both HTTPS and SSH are secure and widely used. SSH is often preferred and recommended by some hosting services like GitHub.

Setting your user name and email

You need to set who you are before creating any commit. That will allow commits to have the right author name and email associated to them.

It has nothing to do with authentication when pushing to a remote repository (e.g. when pushing to a remote repository using your GitHub, BitBucket, or GitLab account)

To declare that identity for all repositories, use git config --global. This will store the setting in your user's .gitconfig file: e.g. $HOME/.gitconfig or for Windows, %USERPROFILE%\.gitconfig.

git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "mail@example.com"

To declare an identity for a single repository, use git config inside a repo. This will store the setting inside the individual repository, in the file $GIT_DIR/config. e.g. /path/to/your/repo/.git/config.

cd /path/to/my/repo
git config user.name "Your Login At Work"
git config user.email "mail_at_work@example.com"

Settings stored in a repository's config file will take precedence over the global config when you use that repository.

Tip

if you have different identities (one for open-source project, one at work, one for private repos, ...), and you don't want to forget to set the right one for each different repos you are working on:

Remove a global identity:

git config --global --unset user.name
git config --global --unset user.email

To force git to look for your identity only within a repository's settings, not in the global config:

git config --global user.useConfigOnly true

That way, if you forget to set your user.name and user.email for a given repository and try to make a commit, you will see:

no name was given and auto-detection is disabled
no email was given and auto-detection is disabled

Setting up the upstream remote

If you have cloned a fork (e.g. an open source project on Github) you may not have push access to the original repository. In that case, you typically configure:

  • origin: your fork
  • upstream: the original repository

First check the remote names:

$ git remote -v
origin  https://github.com/myusername/repo.git (fetch)
origin  https://github.com/myusername/repo.git (push)
upstream  # this line may or may not be here

If upstream is there already (it is on some Git versions) you need to set the URL (currently it's empty):

$ git remote set-url upstream https://github.com/projectusername/repo.git

If it does not exist, add it:

$ git remote add upstream https://github.com/projectusername/repo.git

You can also add additional remotes (for example, a colleague's fork):

$ git remote add dave https://github.com/dave/repo.git

Learning about a command

To get more information about any git command - i.e. details about what the command does, available options and other documentation - use the --help option or the help command.

For example, to get all available information about the git diff command, use:

git diff --help
git help diff

Similarly, to get all available information about the status command, use:

git status --help
git help status

If you only want a quick help showing you the meaning of the most used command line flags, use -h:

git checkout -h

Set up SSH for Git

If you are using Windows open Git Bash. If you are using Mac or Linux open your Terminal.

Before you generate an SSH key, you can check to see if you have any existing SSH keys.

List the contents of your ~/.ssh directory:

$ ls -al ~/.ssh  # Lists all the files in your ~/.ssh directory

Check the directory listing to see if you already have a public SSH key. By default the filenames of the public keys are one of the following:

  • id_dsa.pub
  • id_ecdsa.pub
  • id_ed25519.pub
  • id_rsa.pub

If you see an existing public and private key pair listed that you would like to use on your Bitbucket, GitHub (or similar) account you can copy the contents of the id_*.pub file.

If not, you can create a new public and private key pair with the following command:

$ ssh-keygen

Press the Enter or Return key to accept the default location. Enter and re-enter a passphrase when prompted, or leave it empty.

Ensure your SSH key is added to the ssh-agent. Start the ssh-agent in the background if it's not already running:

$ eval $(ssh-agent -s)

Add you SSH key to the ssh-agent. Notice that you'll need to replace id_rsa in the command with the name of your private key file:

$ ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa

If you want to change the upstream of an existing repository from HTTPS to SSH you can run the following command:

$ git remote set-url origin git@github.com:yourusername/your_project.git

In order to clone a new repository over SSH you can run the following command:

$ git clone git@github.com:yourusername/your_project.git

Sharing code

To share your code you create a repository on a remote server to which you will copy your local repository.

To minimize the use of space on the remote server you create a bare repository: one which has only the .git objects and doesn't create a working copy in the filesystem. As a bonus you set this remote as an upstream server to easily share updates with other programmers.

On the remote server:

git init --bare /path/to/repo.git

On the local machine:

(Note that ssh: is just one possible way of accessing the remote repository.)

Now copy your local repository to the remote:

git push --set-upstream origin master

Adding --set-upstream (or -u) created an upstream (tracking) reference which is used by argument-less Git commands, e.g. git pull.

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