Creating a local repository

Once Git is configured, we can start using it. Let’s create a directory for our work and then move into that directory:

mkdir inflammation
cd inflammation

Then we tell Git to make inflammation a repository (a place where Git can store versions of our files):

git init

If we use ls to show the directory’s contents, it appears that nothing has changed:

ls

But if we add the -a flag to show everything, we can see that Git has created a hidden directory within inflammation called .git:

ls -a

. .. .git

Git stores information about the project in this special sub-directory.

Warning

If we ever delete it, we will lose the project’s history.

Checking our project

We can check that everything is set up correctly by asking Git to tell us the status of our project:

git status

and the output

On branch main

No commits yet

nothing to commit (create/copy files and use "git add" to track)

Note

If you are using a different version of git than I am, then then the exact wording of the output might be slightly different.

Removing a local repository

If for some reason you want the repository to stop being a git repository, just delete the hidden .git folder:

rm -rf .git

Warning

Be careful! Running this command in the wrong directory, will remove the entire git-history of a project you might wanted to keep. Therefore, always check your current directory using the command pwd.

Example: Jane’s multiple projects

Jane starts a new project, infection, related to her inflammation project.

Jane enters the following sequence of commands to create one Git repository inside another:

cd                   # return to home directory
mkdir inflammation   # make a new directory inflammation
cd inflammation      # go into inflammation
git init             # make the inflammation directory a Git repository
mkdir infections     # make a sub-directory inflammation/infection
cd infection         # go into inflammation/infection
git init             # make the infection sub-directory a Git repository

(Notice here that the inflammation project is now also tracking the entire infection repository.)

Why is it a bad idea to do this?

Git repositories can interfere with each other if they are “nested” in the directory of another: the outer repository will try to version-control the inner repository. Therefore, it’s best to create each new Git repository in a separate directory.

To be sure that there is no conflicting repository in the directory, check the output of git status. If it looks like the following, you are good to go to create a new repository as shown above:

git status

fatal: Not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git

How can Jane undo her last git init?

Jane can run the following command from inside the infection directory:

rm -rf .git