Technology Tales

An alternate approach to setting up a local Git repository with a remote GitHub connection

24^th March 2025

For some reason, I ended with two versions of this at the draft stage, forcing me to compare and contrast before merging them together to produce what you find here. The inspiration was something that I encountered a while ago: getting a local repository set up in a perhaps unconventional manner.

The simpler way of working would be to set up a repo on GitHub and clone it to the local machine, yet other needs are the cause of doing things differently. In contrast, this scheme stars with initialising the local directory first using the following command after creating it with some content and navigating there:

git init

This marks the directory as a Git repository, allowing you to track changes by creating a hidden .git directory. Because security measures often require verification of directories when executing Git commands, it is best to configure a safe directory with the following command to avoid any issues:

git config --global --add safe.directory [path to directory]

In the above, replace the path with your specific project directory. This ensures that Git recognises your directory as safe and authorised for operations, avoiding any messages whenever you work in there.

With that completed, it is time to add files to the staging area, which serves as an area where you can review and choose changes to be committed to the repository. Here are two commands that show different ways of accomplishing this:

git add README.md

git add .

The first command stages the README.md file, preparing it for the next commit, while the second stages all files in the directory (the . is a wildcard operator that includes everything in there).

Once your files are staged, you are ready to commit them. A commit is essentially a snapshot of your changes, marking a specific point in the project's history. The following command will commit your staged changes:

git commit -m "first commit"

The -m flag allows you to add a descriptive message for context; here, it is "first commit." This message helps with understanding the purpose of the commit when reviewing project history.

Before pushing your local files online, you will need to create an empty repository on GitHub using the GitHub website if you do not have one already. While still on the GitHub website, click on the Code button and copy the URL shown under the HTTPS tab that is displayed. This takes the form https://github.com/username/repository.gitand is required for running the next command in your local terminal session:

git remote add origin https://github.com/username/repository.git

This command establishes a remote connection under the alias origin. By default, Git sets the branch name to 'master'. However, recent conventions prefer using 'main'. To rename your branch, execute:

git branch -M main

This command will rename your current branch to 'main', aligning it with modern version control standards. Finally, you must push your changes from the local repository to the remote repository on GitHub, using the following command:

git push -u origin main

The -u flag sets the upstream reference, meaning future push and pull operations will default to this remote branch. This last step completes the process of setting up a local repository, linking it to a remote one on GitHub, staging any changes, committing these and pushing them to the remote repository.