Authors: @Jacqueline Osborn, @Kendall Hester, @Kelley Chau, @Yousef Ahmed

Add files

Adding files lets you put the files and their changes (including things like deleting or adding a file) in a commit and eventually those changes get pushed to main.

# Check before adding and committing
$ git branch  # make sure you’re on the right branch
$ git status  # view which files were changed
$ git diff  # view the changes

# Add and commit your code
$ git add <changed files you want to add> 

• Add files every now and then. If anything bad happens (e.g. accidentally deleted file), you will have a local saved copy in your local Git.
• Avoid adding files that: are not important / not useful in main, are dynamically generated, contain private information (e.g. a secret key), or don’t belong in the repo.

Commit files

Commits are little code checkpoints- when you push, you'll be able to look through your code at each commit and revert back to one if needed.

$ git commit <files you want to commit> -m “Commit message here”

• Commit after you reach a good checkpoint (e.g. any subfeature of your feature)
• Try to commit early and often (but meaningfully) — this will help you take advantage of version control and use it effectively.

In git commit -m, the -m flag allows for an in-line message that directly follows. This is really convenient and much faster!

If you don’t want to use the -m flag, you can alternatively do: $ git commit <files you want to commit> This will open a text editor (maybe vim).

Vim Tips

• Press i to enter “Insert mode” — this will allow you to type text like you would expect.
• Type in your commit message
• Hit esc key on your keyboard
• Type :w to write (save), then :q to quit. Alternatively,:wq and :x are both commands to write and quit at once.
• When not in “Insert mode”, you can navigate by using j and k to scroll up and down, and h and l for left and right.