Git glossary · bothe.at

Companion to Git cheat sheet and the Git and GitHub series.

Blob

Immutable stored file content addressed by hash. See How Git works.

Named pointer to a commit; moves forward on new commits. See Everyday Git commands.

Apply an existing commit’s changes as a new commit on the current branch. See Undoing and moving changes.

Snapshot of the project at a point in time; links to parent(s) and a tree. See How Git works.

Every clone holds full history; sync via remotes. See A short history of Git.

Moving a branch pointer forward when no divergent commits exist. See Merging versus rebasing.

Download objects and refs from a remote without merging into the current branch. See Working with remotes.

Reference to the current branch (usually) and thus the current commit. See How Git works.

What the next commit will contain; between working tree and repository. See How Git works.

Commit with two parents integrating two lines of history. See Merging versus rebasing.

Default name for the primary remote after clone. See Working with remotes.

Proposal to merge one branch into another on a host such as GitHub. See Pull requests with and without GitHub.

Replay commits onto a new base; rewrites commit hashes. See Merging versus rebasing.

Log of where refs pointed locally; recovery aid after reset. See Advanced Git.

Named URL or path for another copy of the repository. See Working with remotes.

New commit that undoes a prior commit without erasing history. See Undoing and moving changes.

Temporary stack of uncommitted changes. See Undoing and moving changes.

Directory listing object pointing at blobs and subtrees. See How Git works.

Single long-lived main branch with frequent small merges. See Git workflows for teams.

Practices that keep reviews small, test-backed, and easy to merge. See Code review and pull request hygiene.

Remote-tracking branch paired with a local branch for push/pull. See Working with remotes.

Automated jobs triggered by repository events. See GitHub Actions.