Module 05 — Git Basics (the light version)

🎯 Goal: Understand just enough Git to protect your work with "save points." Not a Git course — a survival kit. ⏱️ Time: ~1 hour.

What is Git, in one idea?

Git is a save-point system for your projects. Like the saves in a video game, you can mark a moment ("everything works right now"), keep going, and if you break something, rewind to that save.

Why you care: when Claude Code makes changes you don't like, Git lets you undo all of them at once, cleanly. It's a safety net. That's the whole reason a non-programmer should bother with it.

You already installed Git in Module 03 (brew install git). Good.

The only 4 words you need to understand

Git has intimidating vocabulary. You need exactly four concepts:

That's it. Branches, merges, remotes — skip them for now. You can learn those the day you actually need them — which, for most document work, isn't yet.

One-time setup

Tell Git who you are (it labels your save points with this). Run these once, filling in your name and email:

git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "you@example.com"

(Use any email — it's just a label on your local save points.)

Hands-on: turn a folder into a Git project (25 min)

Let's make a real save-point workflow in a fresh practice folder.

cd ~
mkdir git-practice
cd git-practice
code .

1. Start watching this folder:

git init

This creates a hidden .git folder. Your folder is now a "repo." You won't see the .git folder in Finder (it's hidden), and that's fine — leave it alone.

2. Create something to save. In VS Code, make a new file called plan.txt, type a sentence in it, and save (Cmd + S).

3. Check what changed:

git status

Git reports plan.txt as a new, "untracked" file (often shown in red). It's saying "I see this file, but it's not in a save point yet."

4. Stage it (choose it for the next save point):

git add plan.txt

Run git status again — plan.txt is now green ("staged"). It's ready to save.

5. Make the save point (commit):

git commit -m "Add initial plan"

The -m is the message describing this save point. Always write a short note about what changed. Now git status says "nothing to commit, working tree clean" — everything is safely saved.

Hands-on: the rewind that makes it all worth it (15 min)

1. In VS Code, open plan.txt, delete everything, type garbage, save.

2. Run git status — Git sees the file changed.

3. Now undo it — restore the last saved version:

   git restore plan.txt
   

4. Look at plan.txt in VS Code — your good version is back. You just rewound time. This is the superpower.

The habit to build: Before you let Claude Code make a big change, commit your work first (git add -A then git commit -m "before letting Claude change X"). If you don't like the result, git restore . undoes everything back to that save point. git add -A means "stage all changed files at once."

The realistic truth about Git for you

You will mostly use four commands, in this rhythm:

git status                       # what changed?
git add -A                       # stage everything
git commit -m "describe it"      # save point
git restore .                    # oh no, undo back to last save point

Claude Code can also run Git for you — you can literally say "commit my work with a sensible message" and it will. So even these four are optional once you're set up. But understanding what it's doing keeps you in control.

What about GitHub?

GitHub is a website for storing repos in the cloud and sharing them. You don't need it for personal automation work, and on a corporate laptop you should not push company-related work to a personal GitHub. We're skipping it. If your job ever requires it, that's a conversation with your team and IT.

✅ You're done with this module when

• You can explain "commit" and "restore" in your own words.
• You ran git init, git add, git commit in the practice folder.
• You successfully broke a file and restored it with git restore.
• You understand the "commit before big changes" safety habit.

Next: Module 06 — Python & uv.