What is Git?

Relax. We'll talk through this in plain words — no textbook voice.

Git is a free and open source distributed version control system (VCS) created by Linus Torvalds. Version control is a system that tracks changes to files over time. It helps developers look back through a project's history, fix mistakes, and work together with multiple team members at the same time.

bash

# Git is a command-line tool.
# You type commands into your terminal to interact with it.

git --version

You should see

(The Git version number appears in the terminal) git version 2.39.2