# GitHub

GitHub keeps your Git repositories online, where you back up your work, get practice code and share it, and Git Credential Manager signs you in to it from Git Bash.

Novice · Operating System · Git · Updated October 29, 2026

## After this lesson you can

- Explain what you use GitHub for in this course, and how Git Bash signs you in to it

## Key takeaways

- GitHub is a website that keeps copies of Git repositories online.
- In this course you use it to get practice code, back up your work, ask for help and show your work.
- Git Credential Manager signs you in to GitHub through your web browser the first time you push, then remembers you.

**Windows only.** You probably keep your photos in the cloud, so they're safe if your phone gets lost. **GitHub** does that for your code. It is a website that keeps copies of Git **repositories** (projects with their history) online.

## What you use GitHub for

In this course, you use GitHub to:

- **Get practice code.** Each practice exercise has starter code on GitHub.
- **Back up your work.** A copy on GitHub is safe even if your computer isn't.
- **Get help.** Send someone a link to your code, and they see exactly what you see.
- **Show your work.** Public repositories make a portfolio that employers can look at.

Git and GitHub are two different things. Git runs on your computer and keeps the history. GitHub is a website that keeps a copy of it. You send your commits from one to the other with `git push`.

## Signing in from Git Bash

Git for Windows comes with **Git Credential Manager**. The first time you push code to GitHub, it opens your web browser so you can sign in to GitHub there. After that, it remembers you, so you never type a password in Git Bash.

You create your GitHub account in **Setup: Install Git, Git Bash, and connect to GitHub**, later in this topic.

**Try it.** Open [github.com/git/git](https://github.com/git/git) in your browser. It is the repository of Git itself, kept on GitHub. You can see its files, and the number of commits above the file list opens its history.

## Check yourself

2 questions to try on the lesson page.

## So what

Once your work is on GitHub, a broken laptop is an inconvenience, not a disaster, and anyone you ask for help can see your code.

## Key terms

- GitHub

Source: https://www.ask-codey.com/lessons/os-and-terminal-tools-windows-github