#git: an introduction

Welcome to #git! We hope you'll enjoy your stay. This page gives you more information about #git and about git in general, in an easily digestible format.

Channel information

Any questions are welcome! Even if you're completely new to git. How to get the best help (also, suggestions on what to do when helping others).

• Can't talk? That's part of our spam protection. Just "/msg gitinfo .voice" in IRC to bypass it, or be logged into NickServ. The spam protection is currently disabled as an experiment. We will re-enable it if we get serious spam flooding.
• Channel guidelines: there are no fixed rules (other than the ever-present "don't be an idiot"), but in case you're interested in optimizing the #git experience for yourself and others, here's some guidelines for both getting help and helping.
• Logging: the channel has a public logfile.
• Pasting text: for pasting more than three lines of text, please use a pastebin site, e.g. Gist – or our very own upaste.de which does not log anything and removes your paste after approximately one hour -- pinky swear!
• Off-topic policy: it's okay to talk about anything (within general limits of reason), as long as you don't get in the way of people talking about on-topic things (mainly questions about git and using git). Accordingly, please consider pausing off-topic discussions to help people having trouble with git (if any).
• Bot: gitinfo serves as an information bot for quickly answering frequent questions. Visit the bot's web interface for using its web-based functions and getting an explanation on how to use it.
• Humans: A sense of community thrives on people connecting on a personal level, if even just very slightly. Personally, I like the idea that Git developers and users can be one big chosen family, if you'll forgive the needlessly cheesy metaphor. It doesn't matter if you only visit us for a few minutes, or stick around for years! Of course there will always be wildly different people in that family, and all of us won't hit it off equally well, but that's okay! We're pretty good at disagreeing without killing each other... not even slightly. (We've argued about text editors and we're still here!)

Alternatives for getting help

• The git mailing list (git@vger.kernel.org) for questions, bug reports, developer discussions and other stuff. No need to subscribe for posting. Please use "reply to all" in list discussions. There's a public archive of all posts.

About git

• Official homepage
• Git wiki features an extensive FAQ page, a collection of talks about git, information about third-party tools and resources and lots of other stuff.
• Introductions: read the git book online for free, or shorter introductions for people who understand graphs or people who like to understand the building blocks.
• Reference: the Git manpages, a mostly up-to-date copy of which is hosted here.
• Explanations: many people on the web have tried their hand at explaining various things about Git. Unfortunately, some of the information on the web is outdated or even misleading/incorrect. If you're in doubt about anything you find, feel free to ask us for a second or even third take. We're fairly confident about the sources listed above, though.