Builder Academy · Beginner · Interactive practice

Git Workflow Essentials

Practice Git branching, rebasing, merging, pull requests, and CI troubleshooting. This is a safe simulation: it does not run Git commands, change repositories or send your answers anywhere.

1. Rebase vs. Merge Simulator

Your feature branch began before main received a form-code fix. Choose a Git operation and compare the resulting history.

Choose an operation

RebaseMerge main into branchSquash and merge PR

Before

A · BaseB · Main fixmain

C · Your changefeature, branched at A

After

A→B→C′ · Replayed

Your change is replayed on top of the main fix. C′ is a new commit ID. The feature PR is still unmerged.

2. CI Troubleshooting Challenge

Pick a simulated CI result

The Vercel preview succeeded, but GitHub CI reports: app/inquiry-form.tsx — Cannot call Date.now() during render. Build: skipped.

What's the safest next action?Merge anyway because the preview deployedInspect the lint error, incorporate the shared fix, then rerun CIDelete the entire inquiry form

3. Check your understanding

These questions evaluate concepts, not your ability to memorize commands.

1. Your feature branch is behind main. What does rebase do?

Deletes your changesReplays your commits on the newer baseImmediately deploys the feature

2. What does squash and merge do?

Combines a PR's changes into one main-branch commitRemoves all code review historyCopies secrets from local files

3. CI says 'build skipped' after lint failed. What can you conclude?

Build definitely passedBuild definitely failedBuild did not run in that workflow

Answered 0 of 3

4. Your First Pull Request: Guided Practice

Use a disposable branch. The toggles below are personal session notes, not proof of Git activity or persisted progress.

Inspect a practice branch and read git statusFetch the latest remote commits and rebase a disposable branchRun lint/build on the exercise branch and inspect the outputWrite down what changed and why

0 of 4 practice steps checked (session-only; self-reported).

Reflection prompt

What did rebase change in the commit graph? What did CI catch, or skip? What will you do differently on your next PR?

Never use real credentials, customer data or company-confidential material in a learning exercise.