In the garden
You go to the greenhouse and bring home a copy of the whole garden, with every photo taken so far. The greenhouse stays there, untouched.
In practice
The git clone command downloads the remote repository: the current files and the full commit history. A folder ready for editing appears on your computer, called the working tree.
You do not touch the greenhouse. You work on your copy, at your own pace, and decide later what to share.
Commands
git clone <url-do-repo> garden # copy the project and its history cd garden # go into the working folder
Tip: You clone once per project. After that, use git pull to get updates from the team.