Understanding the Git Workflow: Working directory, staging, commit and push

Ibuya Kennedy — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 07:56:41 +0000

Introduction

During the onboarding phase of data science and analytics program at LuxDevHq, Git and GitHub were one of the most critical tools we learned that work together to manage projects.
Git: Is installed, runs on the computer and keeps track of changes made to the project.
GitHub: is an online service where you can store Git repositories, the account is created online.
To connect both Git and GitHub we used Git Bash and authenticated using SSH (Secure Shell), this ensures a secure seamless connection for transferring a project.

The stages of Git workflow

Working directory

Working directory is a local workspace that is used to actively create and interact with files and folder in Git bash environment.
We used the following commands to navigate the files and folders;

cd desktop to open desktop folder when you’re inside the user profile folder
Ls Listing all the files and folders
Mkdir creating files and folders of your project
Touch creating a README.md file that explains the contents of the project
Echo typing content of README.md
Nano typing longer version of content of README.md file
Cat README.md to see the content of README.md file
Git init initializing the directory as a git repository
Git status helps to see if there are commits

Staging

The staging area is where we selected and organized the specific changes in the working directory so as to include in the next checkpoint. Staging files prepares files and folders locally but does not upload anything to GitHub.
For example, we used the following commands for the files to be saved;
git add README.md to stage README.MD file
git add . to stage all changes in the current directory at once ,and
git status list these files under changes to be committed.

Commit

When we performed commit command, Git takes whatever is currently in the staging area and saves it as a permanent local checkpoint called a commit.
Committing does not upload the files to GitHub; it remains on the computer.
Example: When we run the command

git commit -m "Add Kenyan hospital health records analysis project

Git saved this snapshot locally, which we can always refer back to it later if needed.

Pushing

Pushing uploads the local commits to the remote server so the work is safely backed and can be shared with others.
When we run

git push -u origin main

it connects the local branch to GitHub and upload the first commit and for subsequent changes like updating the README file later—we simply run git push

Once all this process of staging, commit and push is complete, refreshing the repository page on GitHub shows the project folders and files online.

Conclusion

In conclusion we learned the Git workflow through memorizing and understanding this sequence
git status (Check) --> git add . (Prepare) --> git commit (Save checkpoint) --> git push (Upload)

DEV Community: Ibuya Kennedy