git-essentials

A reference guide to Git, the system developers use to track file changes and collaborate on code. It covers setup, commits, branches, merges, and reviewing differences.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to create or clone repositories, save changes, compare versions, create and switch branches, merge work, and collaborate through Git.
Why use it?
It provides common commands and workflows in one place, reducing uncertainty when saving changes or working with other developers. It also explains how to inspect what changed before committing.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/zai-org/synapse/git-essentials
Any agent
npx skills add zai-org/Synapse --skill git-essentials
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/zai-org/Synapse

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 19 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,895 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00019 $0.01895
Opus 5 $0.00010 $0.00948
Sonnet 5 $0.00004 $0.00379
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00189

Measured 2d ago against content hash 91afbc572326, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

git-essentials scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

Origin

Copies of this mod

2 near-identical copies found in the catalogue:

.setup/skills/clawhub/skills/git-essentials/SKILL.md · 432 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 432 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Git Essentials

Essential Git commands for version control and collaboration.

Initial Setup

# Configure user
git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "[email protected]"

# Initialize repository
git init

# Clone repository
git clone https://github.com/user/repo.git
git clone https://github.com/user/repo.git custom-name

Basic Workflow

Staging and committing

# Check status
git status

# Add files to staging
git add file.txt
git add .
git add -A  # All changes including deletions

# Commit changes
git commit -m "Commit message"

# Add and commit in one step
git commit -am "Message"

# Amend last commit
git commit --amend -m "New message"
git commit --amend --no-edit  # Keep message

Viewing changes

# Show unstaged changes
git diff

# Show staged changes
git diff --staged

# Show changes in specific file
git diff file.txt

# Show changes between commits
git diff commit1 commit2

Branching & Merging

Branch management

# List branches
git branch
git branch -a  # Include remote branches

# Create branch
git branch feature-name

# Switch branch
git checkout feature-name
git switch feature-name  # Modern alternative

# Create and switch
git checkout -b feature-name
git switch -c feature-name

# Delete branch
git branch -d branch-name
git branch -D branch-name  # Force delete

# Rename branch
git branch -m old-name new-name

Merging

# Merge branch into current
git merge feature-name

# Merge with no fast-forward
git merge --no-ff feature-name

# Abort merge
git merge --abort

# Show merge conflicts
git diff --name-only --diff-filter=U

Remote Operations

Managing remotes

# List remotes
git remote -v

# Add remote
git remote add origin https://github.com/user/repo.git

# Change remote URL
git remote set-url origin https://github.com/user/new-repo.git

# Remove remote
git remote remove origin

Syncing with remote

# Fetch from remote
git fetch origin

# Pull changes (fetch + merge)
git pull

# Pull with rebase
git pull --rebase

# Push changes
git push

# Push new branch
git push -u origin branch-name

# Force push (careful!)
git push --force-with-lease

Read the full file on GitHub · 432 lines

Files

What ships with it

2 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 432 lines · 19 tokens per session scan A 91afbc572326

Subscribe to this mod's changes

git-essentials is a skill published in the GitHub repository zai-org/Synapse (434 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 19 tokens to every session and 1,895 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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