References: Your first repo

Primary source

Pro Git by Scott Chacon and Ben Straub. Chapter 2 (Git Basics), specifically sections 2.1 (Getting a Git Repository), 2.2 (Recording Changes to the Repository), and 2.3 (Viewing the Commit History, preview). Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike 3.0 Unported.

Read the source online at git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Basics-Getting-a-Git-Repository.

Pro Git Chapter 2 is the canonical reference for the three-area model, the basic commit cycle, and .gitignore patterns. L2’s framing is original synthesis informed by Pro Git, with the addition of the manual-tracking exercise (which the Pro Git book does not include) and the symlink-gotcha note (which is sourced from a 2026-06-07 Clawless deploy incident, banked in advisor memory).

Secondary sources

Atlassian Git Tutorials, specifically the “Saving changes” section. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Australia. Available at atlassian.com/git/tutorials/saving-changes.

The Atlassian framing of the three-area model is a useful second voice; some learners click with one explanation more than another.

GitHub Docs, gitignore patterns. Reference for the full gitignore pattern syntax: docs.github.com/en/get-started/getting-started-with-git/ignoring-files.

Useful when you need to handle a specific pattern (nested ignores, negation patterns, etc.) that this lesson does not cover.

Further reading

For comprehensive .gitignore templates by language and framework: the GitHub gitignore repository at github.com/github/gitignore maintains curated templates for ~100 languages and frameworks. Copy the one matching your project, customize as needed.

For .gitignore global config (ignore patterns across ALL your projects): Pro Git Chapter 8 §8.1 (Git Configuration) covers core.excludesfile for per-user ignore patterns. Useful for editor files that follow YOU across projects rather than being committed in any single project.

What this lesson does not cite

Lesson 2 deliberately does not yet cite GitHub, GitLab, or any specific hosting platform’s documentation beyond the gitignore reference. Hosting platforms come in L6 and L8.

License of this lesson

This lesson is part of the Clawdemy curriculum, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial Share Alike 4.0 International. Pro Git’s CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license and Clawdemy’s CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license are directly aligned (the 4.0 license is an approved compatible adaptation license for 3.0 source material per the 3.0 license’s later-versions provision). Commercial use is licensed separately at /legal/licensing.