Introduction

The purpose of this document is to help you learn Git and GitHub for COMP 1800 and future projects.

Git is an open-source version control software that lets you keep track of changes you have made in source code or other files during development.

GitHub is a cloud service platform that acts as a remote storage and hosting service for Git, allowing multiple people to collaborate on projects.

If you are interested in learning more about Git, please visit the official Git documentation. For GitHub-specific features, visit the GitHub Docs.

Is This Guide For You?

This guide is for beginner developers and CST students who can write code but have not used Git or GitHub before. We will walk you through the most common Git operations in a Windows environment and provide a solid foundation for your future projects and collaboration with others.

By the end of this guide, you will know how to:

Clone a Repository - Download an existing GitHub repository to your local machine.
Commit and Push Changes - Save your work locally and upload it to GitHub.
Branch and Merge - Work on features in isolation and combine them back into the main codebase.
Resolve Merge Conflicts - Handle situations where two branches edit the same lines of code.

Prerequisites

To follow these instructions, you will need:

A computer with Windows 11 operating system
A GitHub account
Ability to open the VS Code terminal and type commands such as cd to navigate between folders
An active internet connection

Software Requirements

Before proceeding, ensure you have the following installed:

Git version 2.51 or later, configured with your name and email
Visual Studio Code version 1.112 or later
A modern web browser such as Chrome version 145 or later, Firefox version 148 or later, or Edge version 146 or later

Although the screenshots provided will be from VS Code, most of the instructions can be followed using any terminal application. Alternatives such as Windows Terminal, Git Bash, and PowerShell are also viable options.

Typographical Conventions

This guide uses the following formatting conventions throughout:

Commands, file names, and branch names are displayed in inline code formatting:

Use git add . to stage all changes, then check the file index.html on the main branch.
Actions you need to perform, button names, and menu items are bolded:

Click the green <> Code button, then select HTTPS.
Keyboard key presses will be shown like:

Ctrl+S
Multi-line commands and terminal output are shown in fenced code blocks with syntax highlighting:
```
git add .
git commit -m "Your message here"
git push
```
Instructions that require you to run a command in the terminal will be formatted like:
```
run some command in the terminal
```

Admonitions

Throughout the documentation, we will use message blocks to alert you to relevant information. Each possible message block, from most important to least important:

Danger

This is what we will use to warn you about actions that may cause errors, data loss, or unexpected behavior.

Notes

This is what we will use to indicate if we may have any side notes that may be useful.

Success

This is what it looks like if you did something correct.