{"id":"l-git-1-2","courseId":"git-github","lang":"en","kind":"lesson","summary":"Install Git, set your name, email, default branch and editor once, then turn your portfolio folder into a repository and record its first commit.","html":"

Before Git can record anything, it needs two facts about you and a few preferences. You set these once per computer, and they quietly shape every commit you make for years. Ten minutes now saves you from hundreds of commits credited to “unknown” or an address you no longer own.

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Install Git

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Check whether Git is already there:

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Terminal
git --version
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If you see something like git version 2.51.0, you’re set; any 2.4x or newer version works for this course. If not:

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Tell Git who you are

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Every commit stores an author name and email. Set them globally, meaning for your user account on this machine:

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Terminal
git config --global user.name \"Maya Okafor\"\ngit config --global user.email \"maya.okafor@example.com\"
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The email matters more than it looks. GitHub decides whose avatar and profile appear next to a commit by matching the email inside it against the addresses on GitHub accounts. If you’d rather not publish your real address, GitHub gives every account a noreply address of the form 12345678+username@users.noreply.github.com (find yours under Settings, then Emails) and you can use that instead.

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Three preferences worth setting now

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Terminal
git config --global init.defaultBranch main\ngit config --global core.editor \"code --wait\"\ngit config --global --list
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These go into a plain text file, ~/.gitconfig. A setting without --global, run inside a repository, applies only to that repository and overrides the global one. That’s handy if you want a work email in work repositories and a personal one everywhere else.

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Create the repository

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Make a folder for your portfolio and turn it into a repository:

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Terminal
mkdir portfolio\ncd portfolio\ngit init
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Text
Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/maya/portfolio/.git/
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That hidden .git folder is the repository: every commit, branch and setting for this project lives inside it. The files you edit sit next to it. Don’t edit anything inside .git by hand, and know that deleting it deletes the history while leaving your current files alone.

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Make the first commit

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Create index.html with a minimal page:

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index.html
<!doctype html>\n<html lang=\"en\">\n  <head>\n    <meta charset=\"utf-8\">\n    <title>Maya Okafor</title>\n  </head>\n  <body>\n    <h1>Maya Okafor</h1>\n    <p>Front-end developer in progress.</p>\n  </body>\n</html>
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Now ask Git what it sees:

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Terminal
git status
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Text
On branch main\n\nNo commits yet\n\nUntracked files:\n  (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)\n\tindex.html\n\nnothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to track)
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Untracked means Git sees the file but has never recorded it. Committing is two steps: choose what goes in, then record it.

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Terminal
git add index.html\ngit commit -m \"Add home page\"
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Text
[main (root-commit) 3f9c2a1] Add home page\n 1 file changed, 11 insertions(+)\n create mode 100644 index.html
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Read that output: you’re on main, this is the root commit (the first one, with no parent), and its short ID is 3f9c2a1. Yours will differ, because the ID is a hash of the content, your name, the time and the parent. Run git log to see the commit with its full ID, author and date.

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Why two steps instead of one? Because the gap between add and commit is where you decide what belongs together. That gap has a name, the staging area, and it’s the subject of the next lesson.

\n","toc":[{"id":"sec-1","text":"Install Git","level":2},{"id":"sec-2","text":"Tell Git who you are","level":2},{"id":"sec-3","text":"Three preferences worth setting now","level":2},{"id":"sec-4","text":"Create the repository","level":2},{"id":"sec-5","text":"Make the first commit","level":2}],"takeaways":["Run git config --global once per machine for user.name, user.email, init.defaultBranch and core.editor; Git stores them in ~/.gitconfig.","Your commit email decides which GitHub account a commit is credited to, so use one your account knows, such as the noreply address.","git init creates a hidden .git folder; that folder is the repository, and deleting it deletes all history.","A commit is two steps, git add to choose what goes in and git commit -m to record it with a message."],"further":[{"title":"First-Time Git Setup (Pro Git)","url":"https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Getting-Started-First-Time-Git-Setup"},{"title":"git config reference","url":"https://git-scm.com/docs/git-config"},{"title":"Setting your commit email address","url":"https://docs.github.com/en/account-and-profile/how-tos/email-preferences/setting-your-commit-email-address"}],"quiz":[{"q":"

You set user.email to an old work address. Your commits push fine, but GitHub shows them with a grey, unlinked avatar. Why?

","options":[{"text":"The push failed silently and GitHub is showing a cached copy.","why":"The commits are on GitHub, so the push worked. The avatar problem is about who the commits say wrote them."},{"text":"GitHub only links commits made through its website.","why":"GitHub links commits from any client. It matches the email inside each commit to the emails on an account."},{"text":"You need to run git init again to refresh the author.","why":"git init on an existing repository changes nothing about authorship. Author details are written into each commit when it’s created."},{"text":"GitHub matches the email stored in each commit to an account, and that address isn’t on yours.","why":"Correct. Add the address to your GitHub account, or set user.email to one it knows (such as your noreply address) for future commits."}],"answer":3},{"q":"

You run git commit with no -m and a full-screen editor you don’t recognise opens. What happened?

","options":[{"text":"Git crashed and opened its error log.","why":"Nothing crashed. Git asks for a message, and with no -m it opens your configured editor to collect one."},{"text":"Git opened core.editor (often Vim by default) so you can write the commit message.","why":"Correct. Write the message, save and close. Set core.editor to an editor you know, such as code --wait or nano, to avoid surprises."},{"text":"The commit was made with an empty message and the editor shows the diff.","why":"Git refuses an empty message and aborts the commit. The editor is where the message goes before anything is recorded."}],"answer":1},{"q":"

You accidentally ran git init in your home folder and now every directory shows up as “untracked”. What is the right fix?

","options":[{"text":"Run git init again inside the portfolio folder; the newer repository replaces the old one.","why":"The home-folder repository would still exist and still wrap everything. Nested repositories make things more confusing, not less."},{"text":"Run git reset --hard in your home folder.","why":"That command acts on commits and the working tree. It could discard changes and still leaves the .git folder in place."},{"text":"Remove the .git folder from your home directory, then run git init inside portfolio.","why":"Correct. The .git folder is the repository. Removing the stray one (it has no history you need) undoes the mistake completely."}],"answer":2},{"q":"

Which command makes every new repository on your machine start on a branch called main?

","options":[{"text":"git config --global init.defaultBranch main","why":"Correct. init.defaultBranch sets the name of the first branch that git init creates."},{"text":"git branch --default main","why":"There’s no --default option on git branch. Default names come from configuration, not from a branch command."},{"text":"git config core.branch main","why":"core.branch isn’t a real setting, and without --global it would only affect the current repository anyway."},{"text":"git init --main","why":"git init has -b <name> (or --initial-branch) for one repository, but no --main flag, and it wouldn’t affect future repositories."}],"answer":0}],"exercise":{"kind":"fill","language":"bash","template":"git config --global user.email \"maya.okafor@example.com\"\ngit config --global {{0}} main\n\nmkdir portfolio && cd portfolio\ngit {{1}}\ngit add index.html\ngit commit {{2}} \"Add home page\"","blanks":[{"answers":["init.defaultBranch","init.defaultbranch"]},{"answers":["init"]},{"answers":["-m","--message"]}],"title":"Set up and commit the portfolio","prompt":"

Fill in the blanks so that every new repository starts on main, the portfolio folder becomes a repository, and the home page is committed with the message on the command line (no editor).

\n","hints":["The default branch name is a setting in the init group of the configuration.","The command that creates the .git folder has the same name as that setting group.","The flag that passes the commit message inline is a single letter, short for message."],"explanation":"

git config --global init.defaultBranch main makes git init name its first branch main. git init creates the .git folder that holds the repository. git commit -m "Add home page" records the staged snapshot with the message inline; leave out -m and Git opens core.editor to ask for one.

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