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How to Git at Collab Lab

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What we’ll cover

There is so much to know, but this should get you started with what you need to know at The Collab Lab!

Creating and switching branches (git checkout)
Staging changes (git add)
Saving changes in history (git commit)
Sending changes to GitHub (git push)
Getting the latest changes (git pull)
Getting your changes into main (PRs)

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Repository (repo) - A collection of files, under source control like git.

Remote - The origin repo somewhere online (like GitHub).

Branch - A working copy of the repo. The main branch is the source of truth.

Commit - A set of changes to the repo. HEAD refers to the last commit.

Pull Request (PR) - Documents how/why changes should merge with main. Specific to GitHub—you might also see Merge Request (e.g., GitLab).

terms

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Initial commit

Add button

Update text

Add styles

Add tests

Merge branch

Branch

Merge

Initial commit

Add button

Update text

Add styles

Add tests

Merge branch

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The Commands

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Branching

Switch to an existing branch, or create a new one with the -b option

Make any changes you want on a working branch.

The remote project won’t be affected by anything you do on your branch.

# Checkout the cool-feature branch

git checkout cool-feature

# Create the new-feature branch

git checkout -b new-feature

git checkout

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Staging changes

Staging changes prepares files to be committed.

Only staged files will be committed.
The -A option stages all files to be committed

# Stage a single file

git add ./Button.js

# Stage all files

git add -A

git add

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Commiting changes

Takes staged changes and commits them to git. This creates a saved record of changes to the code base.

git commit comes with a few options which can be combined.
No options opens an editor to write a message
-m accepts an inline message
-a stages any tracked files to the commit
-am stages tracked files and accepts an inline message

# Opens an editor to write a message. # Commits staged files

git commit

# Takes an inline message

# Commits staged files

git commit -m "Update heading text"

# Takes an inline message

# Commits staged and tracked files

git commit -am "Add details layout"

git commit

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Uploading changes

Takes all commits and uploads them to the remote.

Arguments and options tell git where to send commits.
origin refers to the source where the repo was originally cloned from.
-u adds an upstream reference to the remote. This only needs to be done once per branch. Afterwards, git knows where to send commits without args.

# Sets the upstream remote and sends

# all commits to the remote

git push -u origin cool-feature

# Sends all commits to the upstream

# remote that was set

git push

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Getting the latest changes

Gets changes from the remote based on your current branch

It's a good habit to pull the latest main before creating a new branch.

# Switch to the main branch

git checkout main

# Get the latest changes for main

git pull

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Pull requests

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Merge conflicts

It’s going to be okay!

Caused when git can’t figure out how to resolve changes to the same file from two different branches.
git will need to know what changes should get saved in the file. Communication with your team is key!
Here is a helpful guide, but your mentors are ALWAYS here to help, so be noisy in Slack!

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Resources