Saving and Git

You changed your first program. Let’s record that change so you can find it later. Use the terminal in your Chiron folder; these are Git commands, not Python code.

Make a commit¶

Run git status. New files appear as untracked until you ask Git to track them. Select your assignment folder for the next checkpoint:

git add student-work/foundations
git diff --staged

add stages the saved files. diff --staged shows what the commit will record; new lines are marked with +. If the display opens a pager, press q to return to the prompt. Check that you staged your assignment, not .venv or unrelated files.

git commit -m "Change my first greeting"
git push

The message explains what changed. The earlier push -u tells Git which fork and branch to push to now. Open your GitHub fork, select learning, and confirm your new commit and assignment appear. If push fails, your local commit still exists; read the message before trying again.

Routine¶

Save files, run the program, inspect git diff, stage the intended changes, commit, and push. Commit after a meaningful small step; don’t wait for the whole course to be finished. git status shows what remains unsaved in Git history, although it cannot see unsaved editor buffers.

Inspect or Recover¶

git log --oneline lists commits with short identifiers. To view an older file without changing your current one, substitute an identifier in:

git show COMMIT:student-work/foundations/main.py

Copy a needed line back into the editor, save, and check it. If you want a completely fresh starter while preserving your first attempt, use python tools/start_exercise.py foundations --name foundations-retry.

Before moving on, think to yourself what Save, Commit, and Push each did.

Later: Review¶

You can use a pull request to read a change as one diff and leave notes beside the code. With your work saved and committed on learning, create a branch for the next change:

git switch -c mechanism-review

Make your change, test it, and commit it as before. Upload the branch:

git push -u origin mechanism-review

On GitHub, open Pull requests → New pull request in your fork. Set both repositories to your fork, the base branch to learning, and the compare branch to mechanism-review. Read the displayed diff before creating the review. It should show the new change, not the whole course. This review proposes adding your change to your learning branch; it doesn’t submit an assignment to the team’s official repository.