Professional Git Workflow and Git Interview Questions

You know the commands. This lesson shows how they fit together in a real team — and how to answer Git questions in interviews.

1. A day at work with Git

git switch main && git pull                 # start from the latest main
git switch -c fix/upi-timeout               # one branch per task
# ... code, test ...
git add -p                                  # review and stage hunk by hunk
git commit -m "Retry UPI status check on timeout"
git pull --rebase origin main               # update your branch with main (your own branch only)
git push -u origin fix/upi-timeout
# open a PR, address review comments, push more commits, merge

Team rules you'll see

• main is protected — no direct pushes; changes arrive through PRs.
• CI (GitHub Actions) runs tests on every PR.
• Code review — at least one approval.
• Squash merge — a PR becomes one clean commit on main.
• Tags mark releases: git tag v1.4.0 && git push --tags.

2. Cheat sheet

3. Git interview questions

1. Git vs GitHub? Git is the version control tool; GitHub is a website that hosts Git repositories and adds collaboration (PRs, issues, Actions).
2. What is a commit? A snapshot of the staged changes with an id, author, time, message and parent.
3. What is the staging area? Where you choose which changes go into the next commit.
4. git pull vs git fetch? fetch downloads; pull downloads and merges.
5. merge vs rebase? Merge keeps history with a merge commit; rebase replays commits for a linear history (don't rebase shared branches).
6. reset vs revert? reset moves the branch back (rewrites history); revert adds an undo commit (safe for shared branches).
7. What is a merge conflict and how do you resolve it? Both branches changed the same lines; edit the file, remove the markers, add, commit.
8. What is HEAD? A pointer to the commit/branch you're currently on.
9. What does git stash do? Saves uncommitted changes aside and cleans the working directory.
10. What is .gitignore? A list of files and patterns Git shouldn't track (dependencies, builds, secrets).
11. What is a detached HEAD? You've checked out a commit directly, not a branch; new commits aren't on any branch unless you create one.
12. What is git bisect? Binary search through history to find the commit that introduced a bug.
13. What is cherry-pick? Apply one specific commit from another branch onto the current branch.

Common mistakes

• Long-lived branches that drift far from main.
• Mixing unrelated changes in one commit or PR.
• Not reading git status before committing.

Quick recap

• Pull main → branch → small commits → push → PR → review → merge.
• Protected main, CI checks, squash merges, release tags.
• Know the 13 interview answers above.