Practical Git and GitHub: From Basics to Pro Workflows

Learn the essential Git commands and real-world GitHub workflows used by modern development teams.

Course Description:

This hands-on course is your complete guide to mastering Git and GitHub, starting from absolute basics and progressing through real-world, production-level workflows. You'll not only learn how Git works—you'll use it in structured projects, exercises, and challenges that mimic how modern development teams operate.

Section 1: Git Fundamentals & Setup

You'll begin by understanding what Git is and why it's essential for version control. In this section, you'll:

• Install and configure Git globally and locally.

• Learn how Git tracks code history and changes.

• Explore critical commands like git init, git status, git add, and git commit.

• Understand the difference between tracked, untracked, staged, and modified files.

• Build your first Git project from scratch using the command line and VSCode.

Section 2: Exploring Commits & History

Dig deeper into Git internals and learn how to:

• View detailed commit logs using git log and git log --oneline.

• Navigate between commits with git checkout <hash>.

• Understand HEAD and the concept of a detached HEAD.

• Safely recover lost commits using git reflog.

Section 3: Branching, Merging & Rebase Workflows

You'll learn how teams manage parallel workstreams with branches and bring everything back together:

• Create, switch, and delete branches.

• Perform Fast-Forward and Three-Way merges.

• Use git rebase to create a clean, linear history.

• Compare merge vs rebase visually using Git log and VSCode GUI.

• Resolve merge conflicts manually and understand common scenarios.

Section 4: Advanced Git Techniques

Go beyond the basics and unlock Git’s full power:

• Perform soft and hard resets (git reset --soft, --hard, --mixed).

• Unstage and discard changes using git restore and git checkout.

• Clean untracked files with git clean.

• Use .gitignore to exclude sensitive and temporary files.

• Stash in-progress work and safely apply it later (git stash).

Section 5: Commit Squashing & Cherry-Picking

Understand how to craft clean and focused commit histories:

• Use git rebase -i to squash commits interactively.

• Learn how to apply individual commits from other branches using git cherry-pick.

• Practice real scenarios that simulate production cherry-picking across cloned repositories.

Section 6: Working with GitHub

Push your local skills into the cloud and collaborate like a pro:

• Create a GitHub repo and connect via SSH.

• Push and pull branches, configure remotes, and set up upstream tracking.

• Learn the difference between git fetch and git pull.

• Use GitHub UI and VSCode to publish branches and manage repos.

Section 7: Real-World GitHub Workflows

Work through end-to-end collaborative GitHub challenges:

• Clone repositories and simulate multiple developer environments (dev1, dev2, dev3).

• Create and merge branches using pull requests.

• Perform merge and rebase-based strategies for integrating code.

• Explore GitHub branching models and workflow decisions.

Practice Challenges Throughout

Each section includes exercises and challenges to reinforce concepts:

• Build isolated Git projects for hands-on repetition.

• Simulate team-based workflows using multiple local environments.

• Apply real-world recovery tools like reflog, stash, and cherry-pick.