introduction-to-github

Introduction to GitHub

Get started using GitHub in less than an hour.

Welcome

People use GitHub to build some of the most advanced technologies in the world. Whether you’re visualizing data or building a new game, there’s a whole community and set of tools on GitHub that can help you do it even better. GitHub Skills’ “Introduction to GitHub” exercise guides you through everything you need to start contributing in less than an hour.

• Who is this for: New developers, new GitHub users, and students.
• What you’ll learn: We’ll introduce repositories, branches, commits, and pull requests.
• What you’ll build: We’ll make a short Markdown file you can use as your profile README.
• Prerequisites: None. This exercise is a great introduction for your first day on GitHub.
• How long: This exercise takes less than one hour to complete.

In this exercise, you will:

1. Create a branch
2. Commit a file
3. Open a pull request
4. Merge your pull request

How to start this exercise

Simply copy the exercise to your account, then give your favorite Octocat (Mona) about 20 seconds to prepare the first lesson, then refresh the page.

Having trouble? 🤷

When copying the exercise, we recommend the following settings:

• For owner, choose your personal account or an organization to host the repository.

• We recommend creating a public repository, since private repositories will use Actions minutes.

If the exercise isn’t ready in 20 seconds, please check the Actions tab.

• Check to see if a job is running. Sometimes it simply takes a bit longer.

• If the page shows a failed job, please submit an issue. Nice, you found a bug! 🐛

---

© 2026 GitHub • Code of Conduct • MIT License