You do not need to learn Git commands. Claude can run every one of them. Your job is to direct Claude clearly and keep a few habits that protect your work. Start with the playbook, keep the prompts handy, and use the playground to see what the commands actually do.
Claude cannot see your GitHub history unless you point it there. If work already exists online, say so and give Claude the link, then ask it to pull the latest version first. This single habit stops your existing work from being overwritten or duplicated.
Six steps. You speak in plain English. Claude does the technical work.
Before anything else, say whether the project is already on GitHub. If it is, hand over the link and ask Claude to pull the latest. If it is new, ask Claude to set it up.
Say: "This is already on GitHub at [link]. Pull the latest before we change anything."When you are about to try something that could break things, ask Claude to make a branch first. Your trusted version stays safe.
Say: "Create a branch before we try this, so main stays safe."Make your changes as normal. When you reach a good point, ask Claude to commit with a clear message. Each commit is a snapshot you can return to.
Say: "Commit this with a clear message describing what we did."Once your work is committed, ask Claude to push. Your work is then backed up and available to others.
Say: "Push our work to GitHub."If you lose track, ask Claude for the current state. It will tell you which branch you are on and whether you are up to date. You never have to guess.
Say: "What is the current status? Am I up to date with GitHub?"Nothing is truly lost while history exists. Ask Claude to return to the last working commit and it will undo the damage.
Say: "Something broke. Take us back to the last working commit."Keep these six and you will avoid almost every common mistake.
Tell Claude if the project is already on GitHub, before any change. Ask it to pull first.
Ask for help. Describe the outcome you want in plain words and let Claude run the commands.
Pull before you push. Get the latest from GitHub before adding your own work.
Branch before risky work. Keep main working at all times.
Commit often, with honest messages. Small, clear snapshots are easy to return to.
When in doubt, ask Claude for the status before doing anything else.
You do not need to memorise these. Copy the one that fits your moment and paste it to Claude. Replace anything in [square brackets] with your own detail.
No branches, no commits, no merges typed into a terminal. Your only habit is the first line you type in a new chat, and reading a plain-English summary before you approve anything.
Before you start, ask yourself which of these two things you are doing. The answer determines whether GitHub is involved at all.
These hold whether you work alone or with someone else. Adapt the names, keep the shape.
One chat does one task. When the task is done, or you want to start something different, open a new window. Never bolt a second task onto an old conversation.
State which mode you are in, what you are working on, and what you want. Claude finds the right files itself, and asks rather than guessing if it cannot.
In a Build session, Claude creates the branch, commits, and opens the pull request. It writes that pull request in plain English: what changed, and what will behave differently afterwards. You read that summary, never the code, and approve if it matches what you asked for.
You will constantly notice things while working. Do not fix them in the same chat. Ask Claude to add the idea to a backlog and carry on. Improving the thing becomes its own Build session later.
When you give feedback on a draft, it does two jobs. Claude fixes the draft immediately. If the feedback sounds like a standing preference, for example "always shorter headlines", Claude parks it rather than rewriting the instructions on the spot. One piece of feedback is a reaction. The same lesson parked twice is a rule.
These are decisions, not rules. Make them deliberately.
Ask Claude what happens when your project's main version updates. Sometimes nothing, and it simply saves. Sometimes it publishes a live website. You need to know which before you press merge for the first time. The stakes should set the care you take, not the other way round.
Working alone, read the plain-English summary, check it says what you asked for, and merge. That is enough for most changes. Slow down for anything that can escape the building: anything touching money, and anything that sends something outward without a person pressing send. If someone else works on the project with you, those are the changes worth a second pair of eyes.
The whole system, in four lines.
Everything on this page is available as a Claude skill. Once installed, Claude checks GitHub before it changes anything, keeps Work and Build separate, writes pull requests in plain English, and never presses merge for you. It is free and open source.
Three ways to install it, including one where Claude does it for you. See the Get the skill tab.
Everything in this guide is available as a Claude skill. Once installed, Claude checks GitHub before it changes anything, keeps Work and Build separate, writes every pull request in plain English, and never presses merge for you.
Three ways in. The first needs no GitHub visit at all, because Claude fetches it for you.
Paste this into Claude and it will do the rest.
Install the skill from https://github.com/marinaritchieAI/git-for-non-coders into my personal skills folder. Clone the repository, copy only the inner git-for-non-coders folder into ~/.claude/skills/, then delete the clone. Confirm that SKILL.md sits directly inside ~/.claude/skills/git-for-non-coders/ and not one level deeper.
# make the skills folder if it does not exist mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills # download the repository into a temporary folder git clone https://github.com/marinaritchieAI/git-for-non-coders.git /tmp/gfnc # move just the skill folder into place cp -r /tmp/gfnc/git-for-non-coders ~/.claude/skills/ # tidy up rm -rf /tmp/gfnc
ls ~/.claude/skills/git-for-non-coders/
Download git-for-non-coders.skill
Skills require code execution to be turned on in your Claude settings.
You will notice the difference within one session.
Six cards. Learn these and everything else falls into place.
Git is the tool on your computer that records history. GitHub is the website where you store and share it. The tool and the cabinet are different things.
Each commit saves the project at one moment, with a short message. The history is a chain of snapshots you can return to.
A branch is a parallel version. You experiment there without touching the trusted version, then fold the work back in.
The branch called main is the clean, current version everyone relies on. Keep it working. Do risky work on a branch.
Push sends your commits up to GitHub. Pull brings other people's commits down. You move work on purpose.
A Pull Request proposes merging your branch and opens a page for others to review first. Alone, you often merge directly.
Grouped by when you will meet them.
A short walkthrough. You will build a small project and back it up, following one instruction at a time. Nothing here touches a real project, so you cannot break anything.
You just did it by hand so the logic makes sense. In practice you never need to. Install the free skill and Claude checks GitHub before it changes anything, keeps your work safe on a branch, and writes every pull request in plain English.
Three ways in, including one where Claude installs it for you.
Five questions. Pick an answer to see whether it is right and why.