Install git
Installing git is the first step to using git. If you wish to use git with a graphical user interface (GUI), we recommend a simple client like GitHub Desktop, which comes bundled with the git command line interface. Otherwise, you can install git from the official website.
Git for Windows
Git for Windows includes a number of configuration options that you can set during installation:
- Select Components
- In addition to the default selected components, select
Check daily for git for Windows updates.
- In addition to the default selected components, select
- Choosing the default editor used by git
- Select your preferred editior. Note, git may allow you to select editors that aren’t currently installed.
- Adjusting the name of the initial branch in new repositories
- Select
Overide the default branch name for new repositories, and setmainas the new default.
- Select
- Adjusting your PATH environment.
- (default) Select
git from the command line and also from 3rd-party software.
- (default) Select
- Choosing the SSH executable
- No recommendation.
- Choosing HTTPS transport backend
- No recommendation.
- Configuring the line ending conversions
- (default) Select
Checkout Windows-style, commit Unix-style line endings.
- (default) Select
- Configuring the terminal emulator to use with git Bash
- No recommendation.
- Choose the default behaviour of ‘git pull’
- Select
Default (Fast-forward or merge).
- Select
- Choose a credential helper
- (default) Select
git Credential Manager.
- (default) Select
- Configuring extra options
- (default) Select
Enable file system caching.
- (default) Select
- Configuring experimental options
- (default)
Configure git
Once you’ve installed git, you should set (as described in git’s First-Time git Setup guide):
- Your git identity (username and email)
- Your default branch name to
main
Set Identity
Every commit contains your username and email address. You can set these globally (i.e., for all your repositories) from the command line via the git Bash program that was installed with git for Windows:
git config --global user.name "John Doe"
git config --global user.email johndoe@example.comSet Default Branch Name
You should set main as your default branch name, if it isn’t that already.
git config --global init.defaultBranch main