Chapters
Git & GitHub: Everything AI Won't Do For You
AI writes the code, but it won’t run your workflow. All of Git & GitHub in plain English — commits, branches, pull requests, merge conflicts — plus the leaked-secret mistake that ends careers.
Foundations · 11:50 · Start here — Foundations
Ask AI to build a feature and there's working code in a minute. But where does that code actually live? How do you and your team work on it without overwriting each other? And what happens when a secret slips in? That's Git and GitHub — and the AI won't run your workflow for you.
The whole picture, in plain English:
- Version control = a time machine — every save point kept forever, jump back anytime
- Repositories, local vs GitHub — and why "push" matters (laptop dies before you push → GitHub never had it)
- Commits — messages that actually mean something (not "fix", "update", "asdf")
- Branches — parallel universes; keep main clean and shippable
- Pull requests — you're the reviewer now; never merge code you can't explain
- Merge conflicts — a question, not an error
- .gitignore & secrets — THE big one: why .gitignore can't remove an already-committed key
- The trap that ends careers — deleting a leaked key doesn’t remove it from history. You must ROTATE it.
- Undo safely — revert vs the force-push you don't do on a shared branch
The AI writes every line. You're the one who knows what to ask for.
The one thing a time machine can't undo: a leaked secret. If a key ever hits a commit — deleting it does nothing. Rotate it. What Git concept confused you longest?