Remotes, Push & Pull — Working with GitHub

Remote = the cloud copy of your repo

A remote is just another Git repository, usually hosted somewhere others can access — GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket. By convention the default remote is named `origin`.

# Cloning an existing repo
git clone https://github.com/user/repo.git
cd repo

# Or, in an existing local repo, add a remote
git remote add origin git@github.com:user/repo.git
git remote -v                    # show remotes
git remote remove origin         # if you typo'd the URL

Push and pull

git push                         # send your commits to origin
git push -u origin new-feature   # first push of a new branch (sets upstream)
git pull                         # fetch + merge from origin
git fetch                        # fetch but DON'T merge (safer)
git pull --rebase                # rebase your local commits on top of incoming

The pull request workflow

• 1. `git switch -c add-login` — branch for your feature.
• 2. Make changes, commit, `git push -u origin add-login`.
• 3. On GitHub/GitLab, open a Pull Request (PR) / Merge Request from your branch into main.
• 4. CI runs tests; reviewers comment.
• 5. You push more commits to address feedback.
• 6. Once approved, click Merge. Some teams squash-merge to keep main's history linear.
• 7. Delete the branch (locally and on the remote).

Resolving conflicts

When git can't figure out how to merge two changes, it leaves conflict markers in the files:

<<<<<<< HEAD
your change
=======
their change
>>>>>>> origin/main

Edit the file to keep what you want (often a mix of both), remove the markers, then `git add` and `git commit` (or `git rebase --continue` if mid-rebase).