Your first commit

The three-step rhythm — change, stage, commit — that every save point follows.

Now the hands-on part. Making a commit is a rhythm of three steps. Once it’s in your fingers, you’ll do it without thinking.

The three steps

1. Change — you edit files. Git notices, but does nothing yet.
2. Stage — you tell git which changes belong in the next snapshot (git add).
3. Commit — you take the snapshot and label it (git commit).

Why two steps to save (stage then commit)? Because sometimes you change five things but only want to snapshot two of them together. Staging lets you choose. For now, it’s fine to just stage everything.

$git add .

The . means “everything I’ve changed.” This stages your changes — puts them on deck for the next commit.

$git commit -m "Add contact form to homepage"
[main a1b2c3d] Add contact form to homepage
1 file changed, 24 insertions(+)

That’s a save point. The -m is the message — a short note to your future self about what this snapshot contains.

Writing a good commit message

The message is you leaving a trail. Six months from now, scrolling through history, “fixed stuff” tells you nothing. “Fix login button not working on mobile” tells you everything.

Seeing your history

Once you have a few commits, git log shows them, newest first:

$git log --oneline
a1b2c3d Add contact form to homepage
9f8e7d6 Fix broken logo image
3c2b1a0 Initial commit

Each line is a save point: a short hash (the ID, like a1b2c3d) and your message. That top hash is where you are right now.