git

Git, from zero to senior

Start having never run `git init`. Finish able to branch, rebase, recover lost work, rewrite history — including changing a commit's author — and run the branching workflow a real team ships on.

10 units·45 lessons·~13 h

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Version control & the git model

Git records your project as a series of full snapshots, not a pile of diffs. Understand the three places a file can live — working tree, staging area, repository — and you understand most of git.

01 Why version control? 14 min 02 Snapshots, not diffs 16 min 03 The three areas 16 min 04 Install and first repo 15 min

Recording changes

The core loop: edit, stage, commit. Read what changed with status and diff, keep junk out with .gitignore, and write commits a teammate — or future you — can actually use.

01 The core loop — add, commit, status 16 min 02 Reading diffs and the log 17 min 03 Ignoring files with .gitignore 16 min 04 What makes a good commit 17 min

Branches & merging

A branch is just a movable pointer to a commit — cheap to make, cheap to throw away. Create them, switch between them, merge them back, and resolve the conflicts that result.

01 Branches are pointers 15 min 02 Create and switch branches 16 min 03 Merging and fast-forward 17 min 04 Resolving merge conflicts 17 min

Undo & rewrite history

Mistakes are recoverable. Discard changes with restore, move HEAD with reset, undo safely with revert, recover deleted commits with reflog, and reshape history with interactive rebase — including changing a commit's author and date.

01 Restore and reset 18 min 02 Revert — the safe undo 17 min 03 Reflog and recovery 16 min 04 Amend and interactive rebase 19 min 05 Changing commit author and dates 20 min

Remotes & collaboration

A remote is another copy of your repo — usually on GitHub. Push your commits to it, fetch others', and understand the remote-tracking branches that mirror its state, so a team can work on one project without overwriting each other.

01 Remotes explained 15 min 02 Push and pull 16 min 03 Fetch and integrate 17 min 04 Force-push safely 16 min 05 Pull requests 17 min

Team workflows

A branching workflow is a team's contract for how code moves from idea to production. Compare the three that real companies run — git-flow, GitHub flow, trunk-based — and learn to pick the one that fits a team's size and release cadence.

01 Why a branching workflow? 15 min 02 Git-flow 17 min 03 GitHub flow 15 min 04 Trunk-based development 17 min 05 Choosing a workflow 18 min

Daily power tools

The commands seniors reach for without thinking: stash work-in-progress, cherry-pick a single commit, tag a release, run two branches at once with worktrees, and bend git to your hands with aliases and config.

01 Stashing work in progress 15 min 02 Cherry-picking a single commit 16 min 03 Tags and releases 15 min 04 Multiple working trees 16 min 05 Aliases and config 15 min

Under the hood

Git is a content-addressed object store with pointers on top. See the four object types, how refs and HEAD index them, how merge and rebase actually replay commits, and how hooks let you run code on git events.

01 The object store — blobs, trees, commits, tags 18 min 02 Refs and HEAD — how names point at commits 17 min 03 How merge and rebase actually work 19 min 04 Git hooks — scripts that gate your workflow 16 min 05 rerere — reuse recorded conflict resolutions 15 min

Scaling & rescue

Big repos and bad days. Clone huge histories cheaply, vendor code with submodules, scrub secrets from all history with filter-repo, sign your commits for trust, and bring a repo back from the dead.

01 Working with very large repos 18 min 02 Submodules and subtrees 18 min 03 Rewriting an entire repository's history 19 min 04 Signing commits and trust 16 min 05 Disaster recovery 18 min

Putting it together

Run the whole loop the way a real team does: take a feature from branch to merged release, recover from a botched merge under pressure, and answer the git questions a senior interview throws at you.

01 A day in a real team 18 min 02 Incident: a bad merge 19 min 03 Git interview fluency 17 min