Git for people who’ve been meaning to learn Git (but haven’t yet)

A hands-on introduction to Git and GitHub for researchers — covering the core concepts, practical workflows from first commit to collaborative pull request, and habits and best practices.

ImportantBefore the workshop

Please complete the setup instructions before 23 April. The session moves quickly and we won’t have time to troubleshoot installations on the day.

Event details

Date Thursday 23 April 2026
Time 14:00–16:00
Room Robin Murray A & B, IoPPN, Denmark Hill
Presenter Dr Ewan Carr, King’s College London

What you’ll learn

Hour 1 — Concepts and demonstration

  • What Git is and why researchers use it
  • The core vocabulary: repositories, commits, staging, push, pull
  • How to track changes to your files and write useful commit messages
  • How Git and GitHub fit together
  • A live demonstration of the full workflow

Hour 2 — Hands-on practice

  • Turning an existing project folder into a Git repository
  • Making commits and viewing your history
  • Pushing your work to GitHub
  • Contributing to a shared repository via a pull request

Timetable

Time Session
13:30 Registration and coffee
14:00 Welcome
14:05 Hour 1: Concepts and demonstration
14:55 Break
15:00 Hour 2: Hands-on exercises
15:40 Group exercise: contributing to a shared repository
16:00 Close

Materials

All materials will be available on this site during and after the workshop.