Git Terms

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Daniel Shiffman edited this page Mar 30, 2026 · 2 revisions

🧠 Core Concepts

Repository (repo)
Working directory
Staging area (index)
Commit
History / commit history
SHA / hash
HEAD
Snapshot (vs changes)
Local vs remote

🔧 Basic Workflow

git init
git clone
git status
git add
git commit
git log
git diff
git restore / git checkout (file-level)
git rm
git mv

🌿 Branching & Navigation

Branch
git branch
git switch / git checkout
main branch
Detached HEAD
Fast-forward

🔀 Merging

Merge
Merge commit
Merge conflict
git merge
git rebase
squash commits
Cherry-pick

🌐 Remotes & Collaboration

Remote
Origin
Upstream
git remote
git fetch
git pull
git push

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 GitHub Concepts

Repository
Fork
Pull request (PR)
Code review
Issues
Discussions
stars / watchers
GitHub Actions (CI/CD)
README
License
Releases
GitHub Pages

🛠 Undoing & Fixing Mistakes

git reset (soft / mixed / hard)
git revert
Amend (git commit --amend)
Reflog
Stash (git stash)
Clean (git clean)

📦 File States & Tracking

Tracked vs untracked files
.gitignore
Modified / staged / committed states

🧬 Advanced Concepts

DAG (directed acyclic graph)
Commit graph
Blobs, trees, commits (internals)
Submodules
Hooks
Sparse checkout
Worktrees
Bisect (git bisect)
Tagging (git tag)
Annotated vs lightweight tags