The Core Git Workflow

What

The core Git workflow is a recurring three-step cycle that developers repeat hundreds of times a week: inspecting status, staging changes, and committing snapshots.

How

The standard local development cycle consists of the following loop:

1. Modify: Edit existing files or create new files in your project.
2. Inspect: Run git status to verify which files are modified or untracked.
3. Stage: Run git add <file> to select changes for the next commit.
4. Commit: Run git commit -m "..." to save the staged snapshot permanently.

# Typical cycle in practice:
touch index.html
git status
git add index.html
git commit -m "Create landing page template"

Why

This simple cycle accounts for roughly 50% of your daily interaction with Git as a developer. The remaining commands in Git are mostly dedicated to collaborating with remote servers (about 40%) or executing advanced recovery actions like fixing mistakes and resolving merge conflicts (about 10%). Master this three-step cycle first to establish a solid foundation for solo development.

Summary

The three-step workflow of inspecting (status), preparing (add), and saving (commit) forms the daily baseline for version-controlling your projects.