Configure global GitHub Main & Create Git Repo

Configuring Global Main Branch locally

• I faced an issue whenever I initialized Git on my local machine and tried to push the files to a remote repository on GitHub.
• The issue was that the default branch on GitHub was main, but the default branch on my local machine was master.
• To fix this issue, I had to set the default branch to main on my local machine. Here is how I did it:

• In the terminal, run the following command:

git config --global init.defaultBranch main

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Create a New Git Repository

Creating a new repository nowadays especially in VSCode’s User Interface is very easy. But sometimes, you might want to create a repository from the terminal.

Here is how you can do it:

Step 1: Create a new repository (on GitHub)

• Go to Github.com and create a new repository
• Select the owner and give the repository a name
• select either public or private
• click on create repository

Step 2: Initialize git locally (on your computer)

• Open your terminal
• Navigate to the directory you created for your project
• Run the following command to initiate a git repository:

  git init

.gitignore

• If you have any folders or files in the directory which you do not wish to add to the repository, create a .gitignore file and add the names of the files or folders to it. The contents of a typical .gitignore file for example with a node_modules folder and a .env file would look like this:

// .gitignore
node_modules
.env

• Run the following command to add all files to the staging area:

git add .

• Run the following command to commit the files to the repository with a message:

 git commit -m "first commit"

• Run the following command to add the remote repository:

 git remote add origin <the link to the repository on GitHub>

• Run the following command to push the files to the remote repository:

  git push -u origin main

When you refresh the repository on GitHub, you should see all the files from your local directory.

Next Commits

• After the initial set up and repo creation, you can make changes to the files and commit them to the repository using the following commands:

  git add .
  git commit -m "commit message"
  git push