Initializing new local repo and cloning from remote source

Initializing new local repo and cloning from remote source

I already have a remote repository on GitHub, now I’d like to work on it also from my local Windows machine.

Make sure you have Git installed!

Set up and initialize local repository

• Navigate to the path you’d like to create the local repository and create a folder for it:

cd C:\Users\user\github
mkdir .\localrepo
cd .\localrepo

• Initialize your new local repository with git init.

Create SSH keys for your local machine

• Open the terminal and start the SSH Agent on the background: ssh-agent s
• Create a new public-private key pair for your local machine: ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096
  • By default, ssh-keygen will store your keys under C:\Users\user\.ssh\. During prompt, you can specify another path though.
  • It is recommended to protect your keys with a passphrase!
• Go to GitHub > Settings > SSH and GPG Keys and create a New SSH Key.
• Output your public key with cat C:\path\to\keys\pubkey and paste the content into GitHub. Save your new key.
• On the terminal, load your new public key into the SSH Agent: ssh-add C:\path\to\keys\pubkey

Clone remote repository via SSH

• On GitHub, open your repository and go to Code > Clone > SSH. Copy the snippet into your clipboard:

• On your local terminal, navigate to the local repository and run git clone git@github.com:your-github-user/your-remote-repo.git.
• GitHub will check if the provided public key is authorized to use the remote repository. The contents of your remote repository will start propagating into your local repository.

[Optional] Make a test commit from your local repository

To make sure everything went right and synchronization works as expected, we can create a new file in the local repository and then commit it to the remote one.

• [Also optional] On your local repository, open a terminal and run git pull. As we didn’t change anything so far, the output will tell us that everything is already up-to-date.
• Create a new file or modify an existing one. Save your changes and add the file to Git: git add /path/to/file.
• Create a commit: git commit -m "Test commit"
• If you didn’t set up a user name and e-mail yet, Git won’t commit the changes. The output on terminal is pretty self-explanatory on what you need to do - simply follow the instructions and commit the changes again:

• Finally, push the changes to the remote repository with git push.