It isn’t necessary to know what’s going on under the covers of git. This map isn’t showing under the covers either; it’s just diagramming the shape of a repo.

It isn’t necessary to know what’s going on under the covers of git. This map isn’t showing under the covers either; it’s just diagramming the shape of a repo. It is, however, necessary to have a mental model of what your source control system actually does above the covers, and how to use it. It is important to know that you have a staging area and a local repo and a remote/upstream repo. It is important to know that each commit has a parent commit (or occasionally two or more parents). It’s important to know where your commits go, how to put them there, and how to get them back later.