Commit Often, Perfect Later, Publish Once: Git Best Practices

Best Practices vary from environment to environment, and there is no One True Answer, but still, this represents a consensus from #git and in some cases helps you frame the discussion for the generation of your very own best practices.

Table of Contents

 * Do read about git
 * Do commit early and often
 * Don&rsquo;t panic
 * Do backups
 * Don&rsquo;t change published history
 * Do choose a workflow
 * Do divide work into repositories
 * Do make useful commit messages
 * On Sausage Making
 * Do keep up to date
 * Do periodic maintenance
 * Do enforce Standards
 * Useful Tools
 * Do integrate with external tools
 * Miscellaneous &ldquo;Do&rdquo;s
 * Miscellaneous &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t&rdquo;s
 * Copyright
 * Thanks
 * Comments

Do read about git
Knowing where to look is half the battle. I strongly urge everyone to read (and support) the Pro Git book. The other resources are highly recommended by various people as well.


 * Pro Git
 * Git for Computer Scientists and a different/updated version
 * Git from the Bottom Up
 * The Git Parable
 * Other resources
 * Git wiki

Imported from Seth Robertson's original.

Thanks
Thanks to the experts on #git, and my co-workers, for review, feedback, and ideas.