What is Git?

Git is a distributed version control system — it tracks every change you make to your code, lets you go back in time, and enables collaboration with other developers.

Why Git?

• History — every version of your code is saved forever
• Branching — work on features without breaking the main codebase
• Collaboration — multiple developers work on the same project safely
• Backup — your code lives on GitHub, not just your laptop

Git vs GitHub

• Git — the version control tool that runs on your computer
• GitHub — a website that hosts Git repositories online

Key concepts

• Repository (repo) — a project folder tracked by Git
• Commit — a snapshot of your code at a point in time
• Branch — a parallel version of your code
• Remote — the online version of your repo (on GitHub)

First-time setup

git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "you@example.com"