Initiate Git repository

Initializing a new git repository is as simple as

open a terminal,
create a new directory or go to an existing directory,
run git init

It doesn’t matter if the directory is empty of not. Existing files in the directory will be considered as untracked files after the repository is initialized.

Linux and MacOS

Assuming we are going to initialize a new repository in a new directory ~/projects/myrepo. We run

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$ mkdir ~/projects/myrepo
$ cd ~/projects/myrepo
$ git init

After it, a hidden directory .git is created

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$ ls -a ~/home/projects/myrepo
.git

Windows

Use Git CMD as the terminal. Assuming we are going to initialize a new repository in a new folder %USERPROFILE%\Documents\myrepo. We do

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C:\> mkdir %USERPROFILE%\Documents\myrepo
C:\> cd %USERPROFILE%\Documents\myrepo
C:\> git init

A hidden directory .git is created

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C:\> dir /a:h
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is 1AC2-CFF3

 Directory of C:\Users\Hong\Documents\myrepo

02/11/2023  06:15    <DIR>          .git
               0 File(s)              0 bytes
               1 Dir(s)  13.321.207.808 bytes free