repository
Also called: repo
A project folder together with its complete history of changes. On GitHub it has its own page with files, commits, branches and pull requests.
A repository (repo for short) holds two things: the current files and every commit that led to them. On GitHub the repository page shows the file tree of the selected branch, the latest commit, the number of commits and branches, and the README below the files. Tabs across the top (Code, Issues, Pull requests, Actions, Projects) open the team's work around the code.
Example
catchow/website is the repository of the CatChow online shop: page templates, prices in a config file, texts and images.
Learn it in the course
- Why teams keep history: version control without fear · What version control is, how Git differs from GitHub, and why looking around a repository can't break anything.
- Repository and commits: reading a repo page · A GitHub repository page from top to bottom, what a single commit page tells you, and what makes a good commit message.
- Branches: parallel versions of the project · What a branch is, why work happens on short-lived branches next to main, and how to read branches on GitHub: the branch selector, ahead and behind, stale branches and graphs with several lanes.
- Merging: merge commit, squash and rebase on GitHub · What merging does, the three options behind GitHub's merge button and what each leaves in the history, fast-forward in plain words, and how to check whether a change is really in main.
- Your first change in the browser, and how to undo it · Make a small change entirely in the GitHub web UI: find the file, edit it, commit to a new branch because main is protected, open a pull request, pass checks and review, merge and deploy. Then undo a merged change with the Revert button, learn when to revert and when to fix forward, and what a PM should and shouldn't edit.