Git without fear · in 6 steps

Git is a garden

Save every version of your work, try ideas without breaking anything, and bring it all together with your team.

In short

This free guide explains Git through the story of a gardener. Git is a tool that keeps every version of a project, like photos of a garden taken over time. It is useful for people who program, people who work with AI agents, and anyone who wants to stop losing files. Here you will learn six commands (clone, commit, branch, worktree, merge, and push), each with a drawing, a simple explanation, and commands ready to copy. To practice, you just need to have Git installed.

What it is

The gardener's dictionary

Before the commands, the metaphor. Each part of Git has a place in the garden — keep this table handy and the rest is easy.

The six steps: clone, commit, branch, worktree, merge, and push

🌱 Garden = project

The whole project folder, with everything inside it.

🌿 Plants = files

Every file you create, edit, or delete.

📸 Photo = commit

A photo of the whole garden, with a date and a note saying what changed.

🏷️ Label = branch

A name that points to a photo and moves along when you take new photos.

🪴 Flower bed = worktree

Another folder for the same project, so you can work on two things at the same time.

🏡 Greenhouse = remote

The shared copy for the team, for example on GitHub.

Illustration: a garden seen from above, with flower beds, a board showing a garden photo, a label on a stake, and the greenhouse in the background

How it works

The gardener's 6 steps

This is the daily cycle: you clone once, then repeat commit, branch, merge, and push. Click a step to open its explanation.

1 · Clone→2 · Commit→3 · Branch→4 · Worktree→5 · Merge→6 · Push

Illustration: a blue ribbon carries the garden photo from the greenhouse to the gardener's laptop

Step 1

Clone — Bring the garden home

Clone copies the project and its entire history to your computer.

Illustration: the gardener lays a stone path, with a tray of seedlings and a photo cabinet nearby

Step 2

Commit — Take a photo of the garden

Edit, choose what to include, and take the photo. The commit saves it on your computer.

Illustration: the gardener plants a new flower bed, marked with a purple label

Step 3

Branch — Try a new idea

A branch is a label that moves along with your new commits.

Illustration: two flower beds connected to the same photo cabinet; flowers grow in one while the fence is repaired in the other

Step 4

Worktree — Two flower beds at the same time

A worktree is another folder for the same project, open on another branch.

Illustration: two stone paths meet and become one in the garden

Step 5

Merge — Bring the changes together

Merge brings two histories together in a new commit.

Illustration: the gardener takes a cart of photos to the greenhouse, where a teammate greets them

Step 6

Push — Share with the team

Push sends your commits to the remote. Now the team can get them.

Video

Watch the gardener's story

The full explainer video, with drawings and animated commands, plus a short reel to send to someone who needs it.

Full video (16:9, in Portuguese)

Download MP4

Reel (9:16, in Portuguese)

Download MP4

Cheat sheet

All the commands on one screen

Print it, save it, or keep it open next to the terminal.

git clone <url> garden	bring the project and its history to your computer
git status	see what changed and what is in the staging area
git add .	put the changes in the staging area
git commit -m "frase"	take the photo: save the version on your computer
git switch -c flowers	create the flowers label and work on it
git worktree add ../garden-main main	open another folder, on another branch
git merge flowers	bring the flowers branch into the current branch
git push origin main	take your photos to the greenhouse
git fetch	download the greenhouse's new history without joining it
git pull	download and join it into your branch

Commit saves at home. Push shares with the team.

Illustration: the whole garden connected by a circular path, with the two gardeners waving

The daily cycle

Clone once. After that: commit often, branch for each idea, worktree when you need two things at once, merge to bring them together, and push to share.