add-and-commit.md

title	Mark Major Milestones
layout	learn
id	learn_add_and_commit

Mark major milestones

Push is run through Git and GitHub. Git is a version control system; you can think of it as something like the track-changes feature in word processors. But Git provides better control of what changes will be tracked, and when. It also makes individual changes shareable with the rest of the world.

Step-by-Step Instructions

On Your Computer

You’ll do this each time you want to mark your changes in Git.

1. Run git status on the command line from within the push directory, and you’ll see a list of files that you’ve been working on that have changed. In the case of a new file, you’ll see a notice about Untracked files:

    $ git status
    # On branch submission
    # Untracked files:
    #   (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
    #
    #	_posts/2012-12-03-my-test-post.md
    nothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to track)
   

2. The first step towards building a commit is to add the file to Git’s index. You can think of the index as a staging area for the commit. Add the file that has changes you want to commit by running git add followed by the name of the file, something like:

    $ git add _posts/2012-12-03-my-test-post.md
   

3. Running git status after git add shows a message similar to this:

    # On branch submission
    # Changes to be committed:
    #   (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)
    #
    #	new file:   _posts/2012-12-03-my-test-post.md
    #
   

4. Finally, you commit the file to Git’s history. The quickest way to do this is with git commit and the -m flag, followed by a message describing your changes:

    $ git commit -m "Added the YAML frontmatter to my blog submission"
   

5. If you run git status after the commit, you’ll see a message that there is nothing to commit. Head back over to the file in your editor, make more changes, commit them, and repeat until your submission is complete enough for review.

6. If you run git log followed by the hyphen and a number (e.g., git log -5) you’ll see the history of your commits (and others that were made to Push up until the moment you cloned or last pulled from the main upstream repository). -5 will show the five most recent commits.

Next Steps

As you work and build your history of commits, it’s important to share your work on GitHub--not just for eventual submission to Push, but to also back up your work to your account on GitHub’s servers. It’s time to push Push.