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Git Overview

Git is software that provides version control for software and other files. Although Git is commonly used to track file versions for software projects, it can also be used for website content (like this documentation), and other project files.

Git software must be installed on the local computer, which allows interacting with the local repository files and also integrates with Git hosted in the cloud such as GitHub and BitBucket.

This page of the documentation contains the following sections:

Git Account

Git can be used locally on any computer, but is generally used with a cloud-hosted server, to facilitate collaboration between developers. In order to use cloud services, you must sign up for an account. In general the account is associated with a person, and the email that is used may or may not be associated with an organization. Personal repositories can be created and may incur a cost of not public (open source). Repositories associated with an organization are paid for by the organization. The following are popular cloud repository hosting services, and will be referenced throughout this documentation:

  • Bitbucket - provided by Atlassian, which also provides other software development services
  • GitHub - provides a variety of cloud-hosted services, integrated with Git for version control of content
  • GitLab

The service for a particular software project is defined by the leaders of that software project. Integration of the local Git software with the cloud services is consistent for basic functionality. However, each provider may also provide additional tools as software installations and on the websites.

Git Resources

Below are helpful reference resources:

The following are helpful online training resources: