Git is a version control system, like "track changes" for code. It's fast, powerful, and easy-to-use version control system. But the thing that's really special about Git is the way it empowers people to collaborate.

All the projects on drupal.org are stored in Git, and there are millions of public projects hosted by GitHub.com. Whether you are a developer who wants to contribute to an open source project, a freelancer who needs to know how to maintain a patched module, or a member of a team collaborating on a single code base, Git is a tool worth having in your toolbox.

This blog post walks through some basic Git workflows for collaborative development. If you've heard people talk about "decentralized" or "distributed" version control, but you haven't seen it in action, or you're not sure what's so cool about it, this post is for you. To follow along, you just need to have Git installed on your computer. Some basic experience with version control (Git or other) is helpful, but not required.

Example Scenario

Here's our scenario: Alice starts a project called "rhymes", it's a simple Git repo with a bunch of Alice's favorite nursery rhymes stored in it. Bob uses the project and wants to contribute to it. Specifically, he wants to contribute a few new rhymes, and help improve formatting to make the documents easier to read. Alice will review Bob's changes, accept some of them, then make her own changes to the project. Then Bob needs to sync up his copy of the project with Alice's.