GitHub Introduction

What is GitHub?

GitHub is a web-based hosting service that manages Git repositories. GitHub is not Git. GitHub allows you to collaborate on the work in Git repositories.

GitHub is one of the most popular hosting platforms for version control systems, but there are others including GitLab and Bitbucket.

 

How to Create a repository

After you create your account and sign in, you will land on your GitHub Dashboard page or Home. If you follow other developers or specific repositories, their updates will show up here.

To get to your repositories, click on your icon in the upper right corner…

 

… and a menu of options will appear. Choose Your repositories

 

If you have not created any repositories yet, you will see a page similar to this:

 

To create a new repository:

• Click the green New

• Add a repository name, and short description

• Keep the repository public

• Initialize the repository with a README file. These are initially written in Markdown and are a great way to tell people what your repository (project) is about.

• Add a .gitignore file if there are files in your repository you want Git to ignore (e.g. RStudio project files).

• Click Create repository

 

Congratulations! You created a project repository on GitHub.