Learn Git in a Day

What Branches Actually Are

When you ran git init back in Chapter 3, Git created a default branch called main. Every commit you've made so far lives on this branch. You can confirm this by running:

git branch

* main

The asterisk (*) shows which branch you're currently on.

A branch is really just a label that points to a specific commit. When you make a new commit, the label moves forward to point to it. Creating a new branch simply creates a new label - it doesn't copy any files or take up extra space.