15 Appendix: Git in 10 Minutes for RStudio Users

You already know the shell — Git is the natural next step for version-controlling R projects. Everything below also maps to RStudio’s Git pane (Tools -> Version Control).

15.1 Configure once

git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "you@example.com"

15.2 The 6-command workflow

Step	Shell	RStudio Git pane
1. Check state	`git status`	Diff / status list
2. Stage	`git add file.R` (or `git add -u`)	Tick the Staged box
3. Commit	`git commit -m "feat: short message"`	Commit button
4. Sync down	`git pull`	Pull button (blue down arrow)
5. Sync up	`git push`	Push button (green up arrow)
6. History	`git log --oneline -10`	History button

15.3 Branches

git branch feature          # create
git switch feature          # move to it
git switch -c hotfix        # create + move in one step
git switch master           # back to production branch

Rule of thumb from this book’s workflow: do work on a feature branch, keep master deployable, and push only at the end of a phase.

15.4 Ignore files

Create a .gitignore so generated files never get committed:

cat .gitignore

.Rhistory
.RData
cline/
docs/

This book’s own .gitignore keeps the cline/ working directory and rendered docs/ output out of version control — the same pattern works for your R projects (data/, output/, .Rhistory).

15.5 Undo safely

Wrong stage: git restore --staged file.R
Wrong edit (file still uncommitted): git restore file.R
Never rewrite history on shared branches — prefer a new commit that fixes the mistake.

15.6 Exercises

In a scratch folder, run git init, create notes.R, then git status, git add notes.R, git commit -m "docs: first notes", and git log --oneline. You should see exactly one commit.
Edit notes.R, run git status (file shows as modified), stage and commit again. git log --oneline should now show two commits.
Add a .gitignore containing *.html, create report.html, and run git status — the HTML file should not appear. Remove it with rm report.html.