Two types of repositories

Non-bare repository

• A non-bare repository contains .git/ as well as a snapshot of your tracked files that you can directly edit called the working tree (the actual files you can edit).
• This is where we edit and commit changes.

Bare repository

• A bare repository contains only the .git/ part, no files you can directly edit.
• By convention the names of bare repositories end with .git to emphasize this.
• We never do actual editing work inside a bare repository.
• GitHub, GitLab, etc. store a bare repository.
• You can also create a bare repository on your computer/server to store your private repository.

If we have enough time, the instructor demonstrates how to create a bare repository on the local computer:

• Create a new local repository with git init.
• Populate it with a file and a commit or two.
• Create one or two branches.
• Clone this repository on the same computer with either --bare or --mirror:

$ cd /path/to/example
$ git init

# now add some commits and branches ...

$ git clone --bare /path/to/example /path/to/example-bare

• Inspect the bare repository.
• Clone the bare repository:

$ git clone /path/to/example-bare /path/to/example-clone
$ cd /path/to/example-clone

• Inside the clone inspect git remote -v.
• Inside the clone create a commit and push the commit to origin.
• The bare repository can be cloned several times and one can exercise pushing and pulling changes.