Welcome to Lesson 1 of the free Git and GitHub tutorial. Before typing any commands, you will understand what version control is, what Git and GitHub each do, how they differ, and the key words used throughout the course.
📖 What You’ll Learn: the problem version control solves, what Git is, what GitHub adds, Git vs GitHub, key terms (repository, commit, branch, merge, remote, pull request), the basic workflow, and why Git matters for testers.
🗂️ The Problem Git Solves
Have you ever had files like these?
test-plan.docx
test-plan-final.docx
test-plan-final-v2.docx
test-plan-final-v2-REALLY-FINAL.docxThat is “version control” done by hand: hard to compare, easy to overwrite, and impossible to share safely with a team. Software projects have the same problem on a much bigger scale: hundreds of files, many people editing them at the same time, and the need to know who changed what, when and why.
Version control software solves this. It records every change to your files as a series of snapshots, lets you go back to any earlier version, and lets several people work on the same project without overwriting each other.
🧠 What Is Git?
Git is the world’s most widely used version control system. It is free, open source, and runs on your own computer.
- Created in 2005 by Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, to manage the Linux kernel’s source code.
- Distributed: every developer has a full copy of the project and its complete history, so you can work offline and nothing depends on a single server.
- Fast: most operations (commit, branch, view history) happen locally in milliseconds.
- Safe: every snapshot is identified by a cryptographic hash, so history cannot be silently corrupted.
With Git you can:
- Save snapshots of your project (commits) with a message explaining the change.
- See exactly what changed between any two versions.
- Work on new features in isolated branches and merge them when ready.
- Undo mistakes, even days later.
☁️ What Is GitHub?
GitHub is an online platform that hosts Git repositories and adds tools for working together. It launched in 2008 and has been owned by Microsoft since 2018. It is the largest home of open-source code in the world.
GitHub adds what Git alone does not have:
| GitHub feature | What it gives you |
|---|---|
| Remote repositories | A shared copy of your project in the cloud |
| Pull requests | Propose, discuss and review changes before merging |
| Issues and Projects | Track bugs, tasks and plans |
| GitHub Actions | Automatically build, test and deploy (CI/CD) |
| GitHub Pages | Host websites for free |
| Security tools | Dependabot alerts, secret scanning, code scanning |
| Profiles | Show your work to recruiters and the community |
⚖️ Git vs GitHub: The Key Difference
| Git | GitHub | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Version control software | A website and service that hosts Git repositories |
| Where it runs | On your computer | In the cloud (github.com) |
| Needs internet | No | Yes |
| Made by | Linus Torvalds and the open-source community | GitHub Inc., owned by Microsoft |
| Cost | Free and open source | Free plans, plus paid plans for teams and enterprises |
| Alternatives | Mercurial, SVN (older) | GitLab, Bitbucket, Azure DevOps Repos |
💡 Tip: An easy way to remember it: Git is the tool, GitHub is the place where you share what the tool tracks. You can use Git without GitHub, but GitHub is built around Git.
📚 Key Words You Will Meet in This Course
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Repository (repo) | A project folder tracked by Git, including its full history |
| Commit | A saved snapshot of your changes, with a message and an author |
| Branch | An independent line of work, e.g. a new feature |
| Merge | Combining the changes from one branch into another |
| Remote | A copy of the repository on a server, such as GitHub |
| Clone | Downloading a full copy of a remote repository |
| Push / Pull | Sending your commits to the remote / getting others’ commits |
| Pull request (PR) | A GitHub request to review and merge a branch |
| HEAD | A pointer to the commit you are currently on |
🔄 How a Typical Workflow Looks
Your computer GitHub
┌──────────────────────────────────────────┐ ┌──────────────┐
│ Working folder → Staging area → Local repo │ push │ Remote repo │
│ (edit) (git add) (git commit)│ ────▶ │ (shared) │
│ │ ◀──── │ │
└──────────────────────────────────────────┘ pull └──────────────┘- You edit files in your working folder.
- You choose which changes to save with
git add(the staging area). - You save a snapshot with
git commit. - You push commits to GitHub so others can see them, and pull their changes.
Each step has its own lesson in Modules 2 and 3.
🧪 Why Testers and QA Engineers Need Git
- Automation frameworks, test data and CI pipelines all live in Git repositories.
- Tests run automatically in GitHub Actions on every pull request (see Run Playwright tests in GitHub Actions).
- Reviewing developers’ pull requests helps you test earlier.
- Git and GitHub questions appear in almost every QA automation and SDET interview.
📝 Assignment
- In your own words, explain the difference between Git and GitHub to a friend in three sentences.
- List three problems in your current work (or studies) that version control would solve.
- Visit github.com/explore and find one open-source project related to testing. Note its number of stars, contributors and the date of its last commit.
- Write down the meaning of: repository, commit, branch, merge, push and pull.
❓ FAQ
🤔 What is Git in simple words?
Git is free software that keeps a complete history of changes to your project’s files, so you can see what changed, go back to earlier versions and work on several changes in parallel.
🤔 What is the difference between Git and GitHub?
Git is version control software that runs on your computer. GitHub is a website that hosts Git repositories online and adds collaboration features such as pull requests, issues and GitHub Actions.
🤔 Is Git free?
Yes. Git is free and open source. GitHub also has a free plan with unlimited public and private repositories.
🤔 Can I use Git without GitHub?
Yes. Git works fully on your own computer. You only need GitHub (or GitLab, Bitbucket) to share repositories and collaborate online.
🤔 Who uses Git?
Almost every software team, from startups to Microsoft and Google, as well as testers, DevOps engineers, data scientists and technical writers.
🎯 Next Steps
🎬 Learn Git and GitHub step by step: watch the series on YouTube!
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