About Git Basics (First Hour)

Mental model, first workflow, daily loop, undo cookbook. Part of the DevTools Surf developer suite. Browse more tools in the Info / Guides collection.

Use Cases

• Complete beginners making their first commit and push
• Self-taught developers filling gaps in their Git mental model
• Bootcamp students learning the stage-commit-push daily workflow
• Designers or PMs who need basic Git literacy for collaboration

Tips

• Start with the mental model section to understand staging vs commits
• Use the undo cookbook for common mistakes like amending and resetting
• Follow the daily loop workflow to build consistent Git habits

Fun Facts

• Linus Torvalds created Git in April 2005 — he wrote the first working version in just 10 days after a licensing dispute with BitKeeper.
• The name 'Git' is British slang for an unpleasant person. Torvalds joked: 'I name all my projects after myself.'
• Git stores snapshots of the entire file tree, not diffs. This design choice is why branching and merging are nearly instantaneous.

FAQ

What's the mental model?

Three zones: working directory (what you see), staging (what you've git added), and history (what you've committed). Every command moves content between zones.

First workflow?

git clone → make changes → git add → git commit → git push. Plus git pull to get others' changes. Five commands cover the daily loop.

How do I undo?

git restore (uncommitted changes), git reset (uncommit but keep changes), git revert (new commit that inverts another). Each has different safety — the page has a decision tree.

Branch / merge / rebase?

Branch for parallel work, merge to combine (keeps history), rebase to replay (cleans history). Merge is safer for shared branches; rebase for your own.