git pull fetches commits from a remote repository and merges them into your current local branch. It’s actually two commands in one — git fetch followed by a merge (or rebase, depending on configuration) — which is exactly why modern Git insists you tell it which reconciliation strategy you want. This is the tenth post in this site’s Git command guide, following Git Push.
Git Checkout
git checkout switches between branches and updates the files in your working directory to match the version stored in a specific branch or commit. It’s one of Git’s oldest commands — and one of its most overloaded, which is exactly why newer Git split part of its job out into two other commands. This is the eighth post in this site’s Git command guide, following Git Branch.
Git Branch
git branch lists, creates, renames, and deletes branches in a Git repository. Branches are just lightweight, movable pointers to commits — creating one is nearly instant because it doesn’t copy any files. This is the seventh post in this site’s Git command guide, following Git Status.
Git Log
git log displays the commit history of a repository — author, date, commit hash, and message, in reverse chronological order with the most recent commit first. It’s the command I reach for whenever I need to answer “who changed this and when,” and it has far more useful flags than the bare command suggests. This is the eleventh post in this site’s Git command guide, following Git Pull.
Git Status
git status shows you the current state of your working directory and staging area — which files are tracked, which have been modified, which are staged for the next commit, and which Git doesn’t know about at all. It’s the command I run more than any other Git command, usually right before deciding what to do next. This is the sixth post in this site’s Git command guide, following Git Commit.
Git Commit
git commit saves your staged changes to the local repository as a permanent snapshot. It creates a new commit object with a unique identifier based on the changes made, along with a message that describes them. This is the fifth post in this site’s Git command guide, following Git Add . (All).
Git Add
git add is the command that stages changes from your working directory into Git’s index, marking them to be included in the next commit. Staging is an intermediate step that gives you precise control — you can add one file at a time, leaving other modified files unstaged until a later commit. This is the third post in this site’s Git command guide, following Git Clone.