DEV Community

Cover image for Getting Started with Git-GitHub
Prathamesh Dukare
Prathamesh Dukare

Posted on • Updated on

Getting Started with Git-GitHub

If you don't know about Git-GitHub and wanna getting started, then this may be a good starting guide for you. I will explain it in a very simple language.
but, first of all, you shoul have a basic idea of what Git and GitHub are!

What is Git <>?

Git is a Version Control system that maintains the log of your projects (Code) and tracks the changes as you update the files or contents within the file. Git also comes with Branching where you can create the branches to avoid any problems in the main code.

What is GitHub<>?

GitHub is a project hosting & management platform which comes (works) with git. You can put your code online on GitHub to share it with the world or your team members to collaborate on it. GitHub is so popular that most of the open-source projects are on GitHub & the community contributes to it.

Now you know what is git & GitHub. Now let's move ahead to know how it actually works. There are two main methods of working with Git-GitHub,

  1. With GitHub Desktop App

  2. With Command Line Interface / Terminal

Here we are gonna see the CLI method ...

Before starting ,

  1. Download Git from Here
  2. You can use any terminal for this (Cmd, Bash, Powershell, etc). Let's begin...

Initializing a git repository

You need to initialise the git repository which will store all your tracking information & logs.

CD into Project Folder

cd <Folder Name>
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Initialize the git repo

git init 
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Start Tracking Files

You need to start git repo to track files for that you need to add files to the staging area to track.

git add <filename>
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

You can also add all files once,

git add .
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Now all the files now being tracked

Your First commit

The commit is like a taking snapshot of the stage which will be stored in log files. Once you are done with all changes & ready to take Snapshot, commit your changes

git commit -m "<commit message>"
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

If you don't use -m, git will open a vim editor (you can select which editor you prefer while running the installation of git) for you to enter the commit message.

Now your changes are ready and you can upload your project to GitHub with all tracking information.
Let's see how

Add Remote Repo

For uploading files to GitHub you need to create a repository on GitHub (You can create it by clicking on create repository button)
Now you have a remote repo, to push local changes to the remote you add a remote

Git remote add <remote name> <remote url>
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Push to Remote Repo

Push your all local files to remote

Git push -u <remote name> <upstream branch name>
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Congratulations, you have successfully uploaded your project to GitHub with all tracking information such as commit messages, changes, log, etc

This was a beginner guide to publish your first project to GitHub. I hope it was fun. This is the most simple thing you can do with git-GitHub, there are lots of things you should check such as CI/CD with GitHub actions, GitHub pages etc.

To explore all power of Git & GitHub feal free to google & you will find tons of resources.

Let me know your thoughts on this post. I tried to explain in most simple manner. I hope you liked it!

Also, any suggestion or feedback is always appreciatedπŸ™.

Follow me on Twitter

Top comments (0)