Git basics and best practices for development teams

Git is the foundation of modern software development. We cover the key concepts, branching strategies, rules for good commit messages and how AI helps with version control.

Git is a distributed version control system created by Linus Torvalds in 2005 for Linux kernel development. Today it is the de facto standard of software development: almost every project keeps its source code in Git, and platforms such as GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket are built on it.

The core concepts in brief

• Repository: the complete history of the project, with every version of every file.
• Commit: a saved state with a description and author. Commits form a chain.
• Branch: a parallel line of development where you can work without disturbing others.
• Merge / rebase: combining the changes of two branches.
• Remote: the shared remote repository (for example on GitHub) synchronised with push and pull.

The most common commands in daily work:

git switch -c feature/invoice-export   # create a new branch
git add .                               # stage changes
git commit -m "Export invoices as CSV"
git push -u origin feature/invoice-export

Branching strategies

In a team, what matters most is that everyone follows the same rules. The two most common approaches:

• Trunk-based development: short-lived branches merged frequently into the main branch (main), backed by strong automated tests. Ideal for fast, continuous delivery.
• GitFlow-style model: separate development, release and hotfix branches. Suits less frequent, planned releases but is more complex.

For most web projects we recommend trunk-based development with pull requests and mandatory code review.

Good commit messages

A year from now, the commit history will be the project's most important documentation. A few rules:

• The first line is a short (about 50–72 characters) summary in the imperative mood.
• One commit should contain one logical change.
• The body explains why the change was made – the what is visible in the code.
• Reference the task or ticket if there is one.

Security best practices

• Never commit passwords, API keys or .env files. Use .gitignore and a secrets manager; revoke any accidentally committed key immediately.
• Protect the main branch: allow changes only through reviewed pull requests instead of direct pushes.
• Enable two-factor authentication on your Git platform and use SSH keys or tokens.
• Never expose the .git directory on a production server – a common and serious data leak.

Git is more than a backup of your code: a well-kept history, pull requests and automated tests together form the backbone of quality assurance.

Git and AI-assisted development

AI developer tools speed up work significantly, which makes Git even more important. Changes proposed by AI go through branches, pull requests and code review just like any other code. AI can help write clear commit messages and pull request descriptions, summarise changes and resolve merge conflicts – but the final decision always rests with the developer.

CI/CD: Git as the starting point of deployment

In modern operations, the Git repository is the "source of truth": every push automatically triggers the tests and, if they pass, the deployment. There is no manual file copying, every release is traceable, and in case of problems a previous version can be restored in minutes.