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Git and GitHub Basics
Learn how developers track and share their work with Git and GitHub in five short lessons: commits, history, branches, remotes and pull requests. Finish with a certificate of completion.
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The short version
Free, no payment details
Sign up with your name and e-mail and confirm it with a 6-digit code. There is nothing to buy.
About 60 minutes
5 short lessons and one final quiz. Your progress is saved, so you can stop and come back on any device.
Certificate of completion
Finish every lesson and score 70% or more on the final quiz. Retakes are unlimited.
Not a program
This free short course is not part of a Ucademy diploma or certificate program and gives no program credit.
What you will learn
- Explain what version control is and how Git differs from GitHub
- Create a repository, stage files and write clear commits
- Read history with git log and git diff, and undo mistakes with restore and revert
- Create branches, merge them and resolve a simple merge conflict
- Connect a local project to GitHub, then push, pull and clone
- Open a pull request and keep passwords, tokens and personal data out of a repository
Who it is for
Adults who are exploring software or web development, career changers who keep seeing Git and GitHub in job postings, and anyone who wants to understand how teams share code. No programming experience is needed, although you will edit simple text files.
What you need
- A computer with an internet connection
- Git installed (a free download from git-scm.com) and a free GitHub account for lessons 4 and 5
- About 60 minutes in total, which you can split across several days
Lessons
- 1Version control and your first commits12 min
- 2Reading history and undoing mistakes12 min
- 3Branches, merging and conflicts12 min
- 4Connecting to GitHub: push, pull and clone12 min
- 5Pull requests, forks and your portfolio12 min
- ✓Git and GitHub Basics: final quizfinal quiz
Where this course can lead
Software & Web Developer Diploma
This course is a short, practical introduction. The full program goes much further: 960 hours online of full-stack development: web pages, programming, databases and team tools.
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See the course →Frequently asked questions
Yes. You create a free Ucademy account, take the five lessons and the quiz at no cost, and there is nothing to pay at any point. A free GitHub account is needed for the last two lessons.
Yes. When you finish all five lessons and the quiz, you receive a certificate of completion from Ucademy. This free course is not part of a Ucademy diploma or certificate program.
The five lessons take about 60 minutes in total, plus the quiz. The course is online and self-paced, so you can split it over several days.
No. Git works on any text file, so the practice examples use simple notes files. You only need to be comfortable installing a program and typing short commands.
Git is the free tool on your computer that records the history of your files. GitHub is a website that hosts Git repositories so people can share them and work together. Lesson 1 explains how the two fit.
No. It is a free short course, not part of a Ucademy diploma or certificate program, and it does not give program credit.
Start Git and GitHub Basics today
Free, online and at your own pace, with a certificate of completion.