Beginner Onboarding

Git Concepts Explained

This page teaches Git from the ground up so non-technical stakeholders can understand how teams track changes, collaborate safely, and recover from mistakes.

How to learn: read concepts top to bottom, then use the command explorer to match commands to real work situations.

Learning Path

1

Git And Commits

Understand Git as a database and commit as the fundamental record (full project snapshot).

2

DAG History Graph

Learn how parent pointers create a directed acyclic graph and why links always point backward.

3

Branches

Learn how branch names point to commits and move forward as new commits are added.

4

HEAD

Understand what is currently checked out and how Git changes context when you switch.

5

Working Tree And Staging

Understand the three areas: working tree, staging index, and repository.

6

Undo And Recovery

Use restore, revert, reset, and reflog with protected-branch-safe defaults.

7

Merge And Rebase

Choose integration strategy with clear tradeoffs on history shape and safety.

8

Collaboration And DevOps

Connect PR approvals and merge webhooks to FlexDeploy orchestration.

Command Prerequisite

Git CLI required: commands on this page assume Git is installed on your machine.

If this is a new machine, start with Git Setup and First-Time Configuration, then verify with git --version.

Command Explorer

Pick a situation to see the commands and what each one means.

Quick Glossary

Term Plain explanation Why it matters

One Complete Git Journey

  1. 1 Clone the shared repository to your machine.
    git clone <repo-url>
  2. 2 Create a branch so your change is isolated.
    git checkout -b feature/update-pricing-banner
  3. 3 Stage and commit your work with a useful message.
    git add . && git commit -m "feat: update pricing banner"
  4. 4 Push and open a pull request for review and CI checks.
    git push -u origin feature/update-pricing-banner
  5. 5 After approval, merge feature into main (local merge equivalent shown here).
    git checkout main && git pull origin main && git merge --no-ff feature/update-pricing-banner && git push origin main