What are Git and version control?
Version control records file changes with their history and makes them comparable. Git is a distributed version control system. It helps software teams collaborate on a project, inspect earlier states and understand why changes were made.
Repositories, commits and branches
A repository contains the project's recorded history. A commit adds selected changes to that history with a message and identity information. Edits in the working directory do not automatically become commits; the changes to record are selected. A branch creates a separate line of development. A bug fix can be prepared and reviewed on a branch without changing the main version. Merging branches can cause conflicts when the same lines were changed differently. Resolving a conflict means preserving correct behavior, not simply deleting conflict markers. Git's distributed design allows work with history locally, while a shared remote repository supports collaboration. Git and GitHub are different: one is a system, the other a service that also hosts Git repositories.
Healthy working practices
Small, meaningful commits make review and diagnosis easier. Messages should explain what changed and why. Generated temporary files are commonly excluded with ignore rules. If a password or API key is accidentally committed, deleting it from the latest version does not remove historical copies; the exposed credential should be revoked and replaced. Local commits that were never pushed may be lost in a computer failure. Version control therefore does not meet every backup need by itself. Review policies, protected branches and release rules turn the tool's technical capabilities into a reliable team workflow.