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
- Repository and commits: reading a GitHub repo page · What a repository in GitHub is, its page from top to bottom, what a single commit tells you, and commit message best practices.
- Why teams keep history: version control without fear · What version control is, Git vs GitHub and how the two differ, and why looking around a repository can't break anything.
- Git branches: parallel versions of the project · What a Git 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, naming conventions and graphs with several lanes.
- Merging on GitHub: merge commit, squash and merge, rebase · What merging does, the three options behind GitHub's merge button (merge commit, squash and merge, rebase and merge) and what each leaves in the history, a fast-forward merge in plain words, and how to check whether a change is really in main.
- GitHub releases and versions: tags, SemVer, changelogs · What a git tag is, how to read a version number like v1.4.1 (SemVer in plain words), how GitHub releases and generated release notes work, how release notes differ from a changelog, how to check whether a fix is in a version, and why merged, released and live for every user can be three different moments.