git init
git init
turns any directory into a Git repository.
git init
is one way to start a new project with Git. To start a repository, use either git init
or git clone
– not both.
To initialize a repository, Git creates a hidden directory called .git
. That directory stores all of the objects and refs that Git uses and creates as a part of your project's history. This hidden .git
directory is what separates a regular directory from a Git repository.
git init
: Transform the current directory into a Git repositorygit init <directory>
: Transform a directory in the current path into a Git repositorygit init --bare
: Create a new bare repository (a repository to be used as a remote repository only, that won't contain active development)
You can see all of the options with git init
in git-scm's documentation.
Starting a new project can be confusing. Sometimes, it's unclear if you should use git init
, git clone
, or both.
Your project may already exist locally, but it doesn't have Git yet. git init
is probably the right choice for you. This is only run once, even if other collaborators share the project.
- First, initialize the repository.
- Once you have initialized the repository, create a remote repository somewhere like GitHub.com.
- Then, add the remote URL to your local git repository with
git remote add origin <URL>
. This stores the remote URL under a more human-friendly name,origin
. - Shape your history into at least one commit by using
git add
to stage the existing files, andgit commit
to make the snapshot. - Once you have at least one commit, you can push to the remote and set up the tracking relationship for good with
git push -u origin main
.
If the repository already exists on a remote, you would choose to git clone
and not git init
.
If you create a remote repository first with the intent of moving your project to it later, you may have a few other steps to follow. If there are no commits in the remote repository, you can follow the steps above for git init
. If there are commits and files in the remote repository but you would still like it to contain your project files, git clone
that repository. Then, move the project's files into that cloned repository. git add
, git commit
, and git push
to create a history that makes sense for the beginning of your project. Then, your team can interact with the repository without git init
again.
The default behavior of git init
is to transform the current directory into a Git repository. For an existing project to become a Git repository, navigate into the targeted root directory. Then, run git init
.
Or, you can create a new repository in a directory in your current path. Use git init <directory>
and specify which directory to turn into a Git repository.
Running git init
in the wrong place will create unintended repositories. You may have noticed strange error messages when using Git. Maybe you suspect that another parent directory is also a Git repository.
To fix this, you first need to track down which directory is the unintended repository. Use git status
to see if the current directory is tracked by Git. If it is, you can either run ls -al
and look for an otherwise hidden .git
directory.
If you don't see it, navigate one level up in the directory structure with cd ..
. Use git status
again in combination with ls -al
. Repeat this until you find the .git
directory.
Once you find the .git
directory, and you are sure that you don't want that to be a Git repository, use rm -rf .git
. This will remove the .git
directory, effectively un-initializing that repository. Run git status
again to confirm that Git is no longer tracking any of these files. (It could be possible that multiple layers of .git
directories are present.)
Return to your working repository, the one that you expect to be under version control. Things should be working as expected.
git clone [url]
: Clone (download) a repository that already exists on GitHub, including all of the files, branches, and commits.git status
: Always a good idea, this command shows you what branch you're on, what files are in the working or staging directory, and any other important information.git remote -v
: Show the associated remote repositories and their stored name, likeorigin
.git remote add origin <url>
: Add a remote so you can collaborate with others on a newly initialized repository.git push
: Uploads all local branch commits to the remote.git push -u origin main
: When pushing a branch for the first time, this type of push will configure the relationship between the remote and your local repository so that you can usegit pull
andgit push
with no additional options in the future.
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