Scope

Below you will find a list of Git specific terminology that will be referred to throughout the rest of this guide. Some of these terms are given a more in-depth explanation in other knowledge base articles, but in general it is important to have a baseline understanding.

Key Git Terminology

• Repository - The centralized location (usually a folder) where all your project files live and contains the Git revision history of each file. Often shortened to repo.
• Local - Refers to anything that resides on your local/personal machine. You might have local repos or local branches. When using Metworx, this is the copy of the repository on your Metworx disk.
• Remote - Anything that resides somewhere other than your personal computer (usually referring to a hosting platform like Github or GHE). In collaborative projects, the remote repo can often be considered the "source of truth" that different collaborators push to and pull from.
• Origin - Refers to the location of where your repository was initially cloned from (usually a url pointing to a web-hosted Git service).
• Commit - A set of file changes/revisions that Git bundles together. Commits are stored as a series of deltas/diffs (changes) between when the file initially started being tracked through the most recent change.
• Branch - A separate, but parallel line of development that has a different set of commits. By default, all repositories will have a master or main branch, but additional branches can be added. This enables developers to work in parallel on the same code and make different sets of changes without conflict.
• Merge - Merging involves taking the changes/commits of one branch and applying them to another. This often happens in the form of a pull request.
• Push - Refers to the act of uploading or pushing the set of changes you made from your local machine to the remote machine where your project lives.
• Pull - Refers to grabbing the latest set of commits made on the origin/remote machine of a project and merging them in with your local copy of the project. Useful for when multiple users are working on the same project and one pushes their set of changes to the remote repository. A pull operation will do a git fetch and then a git merge ensuring you're up to date on the latest changes
• Pull Request - A proposed set of changes from a different branch to be merged onto another branch. Usually, the developer of the branch will open a pull request to incite discussion so the set of changes they made can be reviewed and approved.

Additional Resources

For a deeper dive into some of these terms and more, consult the following links:

GitHub Glossary
Git Glossary