First Steps

There are a few book keeping things you should do before using git.

Set Your Identity

Git needs to know your name and email address which are used in commit messages. Use the following commands to set up your identity:

[1]$ git config --global user.name "John Doe"
[2]$ git config --global user.email johndoe@hp.com

These commands will modify your ~/.gitconfig file which is your global config information.

You can override global config values in each repo by editing the <repo>/.git/config file.

References:

• https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Getting-Started-First-Time-Git-Setup

Getting Help

All git commands are well documented via git’s online documentation:

[3]$ git help <verb>       # Full text of help (shows the man page version)
[4]$ git <verb> --help     # Usually equivalent to 'git help <verb>'
[5]$ git <verb> -h         # Usually less verbose, just listing options
[6]$ man git-<verb>

Try the following to get more information about git configuration:

[7]$ git help config

References:

• https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Getting-Started-Getting-Help