git clone --recursive https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell

The PowerShell repository has submodules. They are required to build and test PowerShell. That's why you need --recursive, when you git clone.

If you already cloned the repo without --recursive, update submodules manually

git submodule init
git submodule update

See FAQ for details.

• Don't commit your changes directly to master. It will make the collaborative workflow messy.
• Checkout a new local branch from master for every change you want to make (bugfix, feature).
• Use lowercase-with-dashes for naming.
• Follow Linus' recommendations about history.
  • "People can (and probably should) rebase their private trees (their own work). That's a cleanup. But never other peoples code. That's a 'destroy history'... You must never EVER destroy other peoples history. You must not rebase commits other people did. Basically, if it doesn't have your sign-off on it, it's off limits: you can't rebase it, because it's not yours."

• master is the branch with the latest and greatest changes. It could be unstable.
• Send your pull requests to master.

Use git rebase instead of git merge and git pull, when you're updating your feature-branch.

# fetch updates all remote branch references in the repo and all submodules
# --all : tells it to do it for all remotes (handy, when you use your fork)
# -p : tells it to remove obsolete remote branch references (when they are removed from remote)
git fetch --all -p

# rebase on origin/master will rewrite your branch history
git rebase origin/master

Covering all possible git scenarios is behind the scope of the current document. Git has excellent documentation and lots of materials available online.

We are leaving few links here:

Git pretty flowchart: what to do, when your local repo became a mess.

If you are looking for the source code for a particular release, you will find it via tags.

• git tag will show you list of all tags.
• Find the tag that corresponds to the release.
• Use git checkout <tag-name> to get this version.

Note: checking out a tag will move the repo to a DETACHED HEAD state.

If you want to make changes, based on tag's version (i.e. a hotfix), checkout a new branch from this DETACHED HEAD state.

git checkout -b vors/hotfix

We highly recommend these configurations to help deal with whitespace, rebasing, and general use of Git.

Auto-corrects your command when it's sure (stats to status)

git config --global help.autoCorrect -1

Refuses to merge when pulling, and only pushes to branch with same name.

git config --global pull.ff only
git config --global push.default current

Shows shorter commit hashes and always shows reference names in the log.

git config --global log.abbrevCommit true
git config --global log.decorate short

Ignores whitespace changes and uses more information when merging.

git config --global apply.ignoreWhitespace change
git config --global rerere.enabled true
git config --global rerere.autoUpdate true
git config --global am.threeWay true