What is Git and repositories

Where it helps a business

• You want the code to belong to you and survive a change of contractor.
• An edit broke the site, and yesterday's version must come back within minutes.
• You need to see who changed what and when: in the code, the documents, the server settings.

How we use it

Every studio project is a private repository with a README written as a technical specification and a CHANGELOG. At handover the client gets access.

• A website in git. The pages, cases and glossary of the studio website live as markdown files in git: editing the site means editing a file, and the whole history is visible.
• Documents in git. In the network survey of a museum complex every document's source is Markdown in git, and the docx for signature is built by a script. Edits go only into the source, because an edit made in Word is overwritten by the next build.
• Automation workflows. n8n workflows are exported as JSON and kept in git, so they can be moved to another server.
• Server settings. The configuration of the websites server (entry nginx, networks, certificates) is in a repository too.

What happens without one

• The code lives on the developer's laptop. The developer leaves, and the project is left without its sources.
• Nothing to roll back to. Something broke, and nobody knows how it was before.
• Secrets in plain sight. Without .gitignore rules, passwords and keys easily slip into the history, where they cannot be cleaned out. Our repositories keep keys, access configurations and dumps out of git.

When you do not need it

The client does not need to know git: the repository is for developers and maintenance. For a site owner we build an admin panel, and git stays under the hood.