Making changes

The edit-add-commit cycle

⏱ Est. ~7 min

01 · Read

Real development is a cycle: you edit files, stage them with git add, save them with git commit. The edit → add → commit rhythm is the core of how you work with git every day.

💡 Picture thisThink of it like keeping a daily journal: you write your thoughts during the day (edit files), pick which pages to keep (stage with git add), then bind them into the journal (commit). Do it again tomorrow, and the journal grows page by page.

Key points

The core git workflow: edit files → git add → git commit
You can make many changes before staging and committing
Each commit should ideally match one logical change or task

02 · Terminal exercise

Let's practice the full git workflow: init, commit, change, commit again.

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03 · Terminal exercise

Stage all the files.

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04 · Fill in the blank

The three-step git workflow is: edit files, ___, then commit.

05 · Terminal exercise

Make your first commit — saving the project's current state as a snapshot.

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06 · Terminal exercise

Now make a change to your file. Add a welcome message to the end of the HTML file.

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07 · Terminal exercise

Now save your changes. Stage the modified file, then commit it with a descriptive message.

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08 · Quiz

You changed three files but only want to commit two of them. How?

Run git commit, and git will ask which files to include
Run git add ., then manually remove the third file from the commit
Only run git add on the two files you want, then commit
Modified files must all be committed at once

Other lessons in this chapter

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