Why Version Control? | LLM CLI Training

The problem

You’ve been working on a project. It’s going great. Then you make a change and everything breaks. You press Ctrl+Z a few times, but it’s not undoing what you need. You try more changes to fix it. Now things are even worse, and you can’t remember what the working version looked like.

Sound familiar? This happens to everyone — beginners and experts alike.

The Google Docs analogy

You know how Google Docs automatically saves your document and keeps a version history? You can go to File → Version history → See version history and see every change that was ever made, by whom, and when. You can even restore an old version.

Git does the same thing, but for your entire project.

Every time you make a “save point” in git (called a commit), it takes a snapshot of all your files. You can always go back to any previous snapshot. Nothing is ever truly lost.

Google Docs	Git
Auto-saves your document	You manually save (commit) your project
Version history shows all changes	`git log` shows all commits
You can restore old versions	`git checkout` or `git revert` goes back
Shows who made which change	Commits record who and when
Share with collaborators	Push to GitHub for collaboration

Why you need this as an orchestrator

When you’re working with AI CLI tools, you’re making lots of changes quickly. Claude Code might edit 15 files in one go. Gemini CLI might refactor your entire project structure. Sometimes those changes are exactly right. Sometimes they’re not.

With git:

Before a big AI task: Save a commit. “Here’s my working project.”
After the AI makes changes: If it’s great, commit again. If it’s broken, revert to the previous commit.
Experimenting: Try something wild. If it doesn’t work, go back with one command.

Without git, you’re flying without a safety net. With git, you can always get back to a known-good state.

💡Think of commits as save points in a video game

You wouldn’t play a hard level without saving first. You shouldn’t make big changes to a project without committing first. Each commit is a save point you can return to at any time.

What is git?

Git is a version control system. It’s a program that runs on your computer and tracks changes to files in a folder. It was created in 2005 by Linus Torvalds (who also created Linux) and is used by virtually every software project on Earth.

GitHub is a website that hosts git repositories online. It’s like Google Drive for git projects. Git works on your computer; GitHub stores your projects in the cloud so you can share and collaborate.

Term	What it is
git	The program that tracks changes on your computer
GitHub	A website that hosts your git projects online
Repository (repo)	A project folder that git is tracking
Commit	A saved snapshot of your project
Branch	A separate line of work (like a parallel universe)
Push	Upload your commits to GitHub
Pull	Download new commits from GitHub

Check if git is installed

git --version

If you see a version number (like git version 2.43.0), you’re set.

If not, install it:

macOS: xcode-select --install (or brew install git)
Windows: Download from git-scm.com
Linux: sudo apt install git (Ubuntu/Debian) or sudo dnf install git (Fedora)

One-time setup

After installing, tell git who you are (used in commit messages):

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

That’s all the setup you need. In the next lesson, we’ll create your first repository and make your first commit.

KNOWLEDGE CHECK

What is a git commit?