🧠 Git Merging Branches Tutorial — Step-by-Step Guide

 Working with branches in Git is one of the most powerful ways to manage your code. In this tutorial, we’ll walk through how to create a repository, add branches, make commits, and finally merge multiple branches into your main branch.

---

🪴 Step 1: Create a New Git Repository

Let’s start by initializing a new Git repository in your local project folder:

git init

This creates a hidden .git folder — the home of all your version history.

Next, connect your local repository to a remote one (for example, on GitHub):

git remote add origin https://github.com/unicornautomata/test_app.git

Now fetch existing data (if any) and pull the latest changes from the remote repository:

git fetch origin

git pull origin main

his ensures your local main branch is up to date.

---

🌿 Step 2: Create and Work on Branch AA

Let’s create a new branch named AA and switch to it:

git checkout -b AA

Now, add a new file to this branch:

git add git_tut.txt

git commit -m "Add git_tut.txt file"

git push -u origin AA

This pushes branch AA to your GitHub repository.

---

🌳 Step 3: Create and Work on Branch BB

Go back to the main branch, then create another branch named BB:

git checkout main

git checkout -b BB

Now add two files — New.txt and git_tut.txt — then commit and push your changes:

git add New.txt git_tut.txt

git commit -m "Add New.txt and update git_tut.txt"

git push -u origin BB

🌼 Step 4: Create a Merge Branch (CC)

Now, we’ll merge both AA and BB into a new branch called CC.

Switch back to main and create CC:

git checkout main

git checkout -b CC

Then merge the other two branches:

git merge AA

git merge BB

If everything merges cleanly, push CC to the remote repository:

git push -u origin CC

If a conflict occurs — meaning there’s a change in branch BB that overlaps with the current version of the file in CC — simply open the file in your code editor (in my case, Atom). You’ll see sections labeled something like “your changes” and “their changes”, often with buttons to choose between them.

If you want to keep only one version, click the corresponding button. If you prefer to keep both changes, just remove the conflict markers (your changes and their changes labels), adjust the content as needed, and save the file.

Finally, push branch CC to the remote repository:

git push -u origin CC

🌻 Step 5: Merge Everything Back to Main

Finally, let’s bring all your updates back into the main branch.

git checkout main

git merge CC

git push -u origin main

 Your main branch now contains all the changes from AA, BB, and CC.

---

🎉 Step 6: Verify Everything

You can check your branches and commit history to verify your merges:

git log --oneline --graph --all

This shows a visual representation of your branches and merge history.

🧩 Summary

Here’s what we accomplished:

• Initialized a Git repository and connected it to GitHub

• Created branches (AA, BB, CC)

• Added and committed changes on each branch

• Merged all branches cleanly back into main

You’ve just completed a practical hands-on Git merging tutorial! 🚀