Introduction to GitHub

This lesson covers the basics of GitHub, a platform to host and manage changes to your code.

![Intro to GitHub]

Sketchnote by Tomomi Imura

Pre-Lecture Quiz

Pre-lecture quiz

Introduction

In this lesson, we'll cover:

tracking the work you do on your machine
working on projects with others
how to contribute to open source software

Prerequisites

Before you begin, you'll need to check if Git is installed. In the terminal type: git --version

If Git is not installed, download Git. Then, setup your local Git profile in the terminal:

git config --global user.name "your-name"
git config --global user.email "your-email"

To check if Git is already configured you can type: git config --list

You'll also need a GitHub account, a code editor (like Visual Studio Code), and you'll need to open your terminal (or: command prompt).

Navigate to github.com and create an account if you haven't already, or log in and fill out your profile.

✅ GitHub isn't the only code repository in the world; there are others, but GitHub is the best known

Preparation

You'll need both a folder with a code project on your local machine (laptop or PC), and a public repository on GitHub, which will serve as an example for how to contribute to the projects of others.

Code management

Let's say you have a folder locally with some code project and you want to start tracking your progress using git - the version control system. Some people compare using git to writing a love letter to your future self. Reading your commit messages days or weeks or months later you'll be able to recall why you made a decision, or "rollback" a change - that is, when you write good "commit messages".

Task: Make a repository and commit code

Check out video

Create repository on GitHub. On GitHub.com, in the repositories tab, or from the navigation bar top-right, find the new repo button.
1. Give your repository (folder) a name
2. Select create repository.
Navigate to your working folder. In your terminal, switch to the folder (also known as the directory) you want to start tracking. Type:
bash
```
cd [name of your folder]
```
Initialize a git repository. In your project type:
bash
```
git init
```
Check status. To check the status of your repository type:
bash
```
git status
```
the output can look something like this:
output
```
Changes not staged for commit:
(use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed)
(use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)

     modified:   file.txt
     modified:   file2.txt
```
Typically a git status command tells you things like what files are ready to be saved to the repo or has changes on it that you might want to persist.
Add all files for tracking This also called as staging files/ adding files to the staging area.
bash
```
git add .
```
The git add plus . argument indicates that all your files & changes for tracking.
Add selected files for tracking
bash
```
git add [file or folder name]
```
This helps us to add only selected files to the staging area when we don't want to commit all files at once.
Unstage all files
bash
```
git reset
```
This command helps us to unstage all files at once.
Unstage a particular file
bash
```
git reset [file or folder name]
```
This command helps us to unstage only a particular file at once that we don't want to include for the next commit.

Introduction to GitHub ​

Pre-Lecture Quiz ​

Introduction ​

Prerequisites ​

Preparation ​

Code management ​

Task: Make a repository and commit code ​