Exercise 1: Create Your Research Repository

Time: 10 minutes

Your Task

Create a Git repository for a mock research project. Pick any topic you're interested in - it doesn't need to be real data or working code.

Steps

1. Create a project folder

mkdir my-research-project
cd my-research-project
git init

2. Create a README.md

Use your text editor to create a file called README.md with: - A project title - A one-line description of the research - Your name

3. Make your first commit

git add README.md
git commit -m "Add project README"

4. Create a Python script

Create a file (e.g., analysis.py or process_data.py) with a few functions. It doesn't need to run - just something plausible:

"""My analysis module."""

def load_data(filepath):
    """Load raw data from file."""
    pass

def clean_data(df):
    """Remove invalid entries."""
    pass

git add analysis.py
git commit -m "Add initial analysis script with data loading functions"

5. Create a .gitignore

data/*.csv
.ipynb_checkpoints/
__pycache__/
.DS_Store
.env

git add .gitignore
git commit -m "Add .gitignore for data files and Python artifacts"

6. Check your history

git log --oneline

You should see 3 commits with meaningful messages.

---

Finished Early?

Try these: - git log --graph --all --oneline - visual history (more interesting once we add branches!) - git diff HEAD~2 - see what changed over the last 2 commits - Edit a file, then run git diff BEFORE staging - see the working directory diff - Add more files and commits - a notebook, a config file, a docs/ folder