Challenge ·Easy

Git Basics: Put a Project Under Version Control From Scratch

Kaloyan Preslavski
by  Kaloyan Preslavski · on
Linux
A folder of half-written code, three copies of it, and no repository. Initialize the repo properly, set identity, and make a clean first commit.
#git

It is a nice Monday, sun and everything, and Niki feels good about it. First day at a new job, and the plan was to walk in calm, professional, a person who already has this figured out. The plan survives for about four minutes.

Her badge is not working yet, so one guy from sales opens her the door. On her desk there is a laptop, one 404 LABS sticker, and nothing else. The company is eleven people. The product is beacon-api and according to the pitch deck it will change how fleet operators track their vehicles. According to the reality, it is a folder on a shared drive.

Not one folder, actually. There is beacon-api-FINAL-v2-actual, there is beacon-api-old-DO-NOT-DELETE, and there is beacon-api-backup.zip on the desktop of a developer who no longer works here. This is the version control so far. When somebody needs the latest code, they ask in Slack which folder is the real one, and the answer is not always the same.

First message comes from Teo, the backend lead, who is apparently also her mentor. He announces this with a wave emoji, and after thirty seconds, with a task.

"welcome! ok so. beacon-api has no repo. it is just... files. put this under version control before you touch anything. seriously, before ANYTHING"

The real folder, Teo confirms, is ~/beacon-api-FINAL-v2-actual. Everything else is history that nobody wrote down.

Niki has used git before. She cloned things, she pulled things, she pushed things when somebody told her to push now. But starting a repository from zero, this she never did.

So Niki Opens the Folder

Teo's second message arrives before she finishes reading the first: 404 Labs uses main as the branch name for every repository, not the older default a bare git init would pick. Niki initializes ~/beacon-api-FINAL-v2-actual right here, making sure it starts on main from the first commit, not something to rename afterward.

Teo's tip

git init -b main does it in one move, and works the same regardless of what this machine's own init.defaultBranch config happens to be set to. If you already initialized on another branch name, git branch -m main renames whatever branch you are currently on.

Every Commit Needs an Author

A commit needs an author, and right now ~/beacon-api-FINAL-v2-actual has none of its own, whatever name the laptop happens to answer to by default. Niki sets her own identity right here, inside this one repository, not the global settings that would follow her to every future project on the machine: name Niki, email niki@404labs.

Teo's tip

git config user.name "..." and git config user.email "..." inside ~/beacon-api-FINAL-v2-actual. With no scope flag, that writes to .git/config, local to this one repository. --global would write to ~/.gitconfig instead, which every repo on this machine inherits unless its own local config overrides it. The check here only reads the local value.

The First Commit

Everything in ~/beacon-api-FINAL-v2-actual gets staged and committed in one shot, nothing left behind, nothing still untracked.

Almost six. Teo is two desks over, headphones on, already onto the next thing. The real folder has a history now. That part, at least, is done.

How to Author Challenges on iximiuz Labs

Instead of providing a subpar online editing experience, iximiuz Labs offers a helper CLI tool called labctl, allowing you to use your favorite text editor (or a full-featured IDE) to write content from the comfort of your local machine.

Install labctl CLI

curl -sf https://labs.iximiuz.com/cli/install.sh | sh

This will download and install the latest version of the labctl CLI. You only need to do this once per workstation.

Authorize labctl

labctl auth login

This will open a browser window asking you to authorize labctl to access your account. You need to do it after a fresh install of labctl and repeat it whenever the auth session expires.

Pull challenge content

labctl content pull challenge first-day-6a6794a6

This will create a local copy of the challenge content in a directory named first-day-6a6794a6. You only need to do this once per challenge.

Stream your changes

labctl content push -fw challenge first-day-6a6794a6

Run this command in a separate terminal to continuously upload your changes to the server while editing the challenge in your favorite text editor or IDE.

You can also use labctl to create, list, and delete your content. Learn more about the available commands: labctl content --help

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