Ref: https://git-scm.com/docs/gitglossary
The action of updating all or part of the working tree with a tree object or blob from the object database, and updating the index and HEAD if the whole working tree has been pointed at a new branch.
As a noun: A single point in the Git history; the entire history of a project is represented as a set of interrelated commits. The word "commit" is often used by Git in the same places other revision control systems use the words "revision" or "version". Also used as a short hand for commit object.
As a verb: The action of storing a new snapshot of the project’s state in the Git history, by creating a new commit representing the current state of the index and advancing HEAD to point at the new commit.
Fetching a branch means to get the branch’s head ref from a remote repository, to find out which objects are missing from the local object database, and to get them, too. See also git-fetch[1].
A named reference to the commit at the tip of a
branch. Heads are stored in a file in
$GIT_DIR/refs/heads/ directory, except when using packed refs. (See
git-pack-refs[1].)
The current branch. In more detail: Your working tree is normally derived from the state of the tree referred to by HEAD. HEAD is a reference to one of the heads in your repository, except when using a detached HEAD, in which case it directly references an arbitrary commit.
The default development branch. Whenever you create a Git repository, a branch named "master" is created, and becomes the active branch. In most cases, this contains the local development, though that is purely by convention and is not required.
As a verb: To bring the contents of another branch (possibly from an external repository) into the current branch. In the case where the merged-in branch is from a different repository, this is done by first fetching the remote branch and then merging the result into the current branch. This combination of fetch and merge operations is called a pull. Merging is performed by an automatic process that identifies changes made since the branches diverged, and then applies all those changes together. In cases where changes conflict, manual intervention may be required to complete the merge.
As a noun: unless it is a fast-forward, a successful merge results in the creation of a new commit representing the result of the merge, and having as parents the tips of the merged branches. This commit is referred to as a "merge commit", or sometimes just a "merge".
The default upstream repository. Most projects have
at least one upstream project which they track. By default
origin is used for that purpose. New upstream updates
will be fetched into remote-tracking branches named
origin/name-of-upstream-branch, which you can see using
git branch -r.
Pulling a branch means to fetch it and merge it. See also git-pull[1].
Pushing a branch means to get the branch’s head ref from a remote repository, find out if it is a direct ancestor to the branch’s local head ref, and in that case, putting all objects, which are reachable from the local head ref, and which are missing from the remote repository, into the remote object database, and updating the remote head ref. If the remote head is not an ancestor to the local head, the push fails.
A repository which is used to track the same project but resides somewhere else. To communicate with remotes, see fetch or push.
A ref that is used to follow changes from another repository. It typically looks like refs/remotes/foo/bar (indicating that it tracks a branch named bar in a remote named foo), and matches the right-hand-side of a configured fetch refspec. A remote-tracking branch should not contain direct modifications or have local commits made to it.
A collection of refs together with an object database containing all objects which are reachable from the refs, possibly accompanied by meta data from one or more porcelains. A repository can share an object database with other repositories via alternates mechanism.
The action of fixing up manually what a failed automatic merge left behind.
An object used to temporarily store the contents of a dirty working directory and the index for future reuse.
The default branch that is merged into the branch in question (or the branch in question is rebased onto). It is configured via branch.<name>.remote and branch.<name>.merge. If the upstream branch of A is origin/B sometimes we say "A is tracking origin/B".
The tree of actual checked out files. The working tree normally contains the contents of the HEAD commit’s tree, plus any local changes that you have made but not yet committed.
In SCM jargon, "cherry pick" means to choose a subset of changes out of a series of changes (typically commits) and record them as a new series of changes on top of a different codebase. In Git, this is performed by the "git cherry-pick" command to extract the change introduced by an existing commit and to record it based on the tip of the current branch as a new commit.
A working tree is clean, if it corresponds to the revision referenced by the current head. Also see "dirty".
Normally the HEAD stores the name of a branch, and commands that operate on the history HEAD represents operate on the history leading to the tip of the branch the HEAD points at. However, Git also allows you to check out an arbitrary commit that isn’t necessarily the tip of any particular branch. The HEAD in such a state is called "detached".
Note that commands that operate on the history of the current branch
(e.g. git commit to build a new history on top of it) still work
while the HEAD is detached. They update the HEAD to point at the tip
of the updated history without affecting any branch. Commands that
update or inquire information about the current branch (e.g. git
branch --set-upstream-to that sets what remote-tracking branch the
current branch integrates with) obviously do not work, as there is no
(real) current branch to ask about in this state.
A working tree is said to be "dirty" if it contains modifications which have not been committed to the current branch.
A fast-forward is a special type of merge where you have a revision and you are "merging" another branch's changes that happen to be a descendant of what you have. In such a case, you do not make a new merge commit but instead just update to his revision. This will happen frequently on a remote-tracking branch of a remote repository.
A plain file .git at the root of a working tree that
points at the directory that is the real repository.
To reapply a series of changes from a branch to a different base, and reset the head of that branch to the result.
A repository that holds the history of a separate project inside another repository (the latter of which is called superproject).
A repository that references repositories of other projects in its working tree as submodules. The superproject knows about the names of (but does not hold copies of) commit objects of the contained submodules.
A ref under refs/tags/ namespace that points to an
object of an arbitrary type (typically a tag points to either a
tag or a commit object).
In contrast to a head, a tag is not updated by
the commit command. A Git tag has nothing to do with a Lisp
tag (which would be called an object type
in Git’s context). A tag is most typically used to mark a particular
point in the commit ancestry chain.
Either a working tree, or a tree object together with the dependent blob and tree objects (i.e. a stored representation of a working tree).
An object containing a list of file names and modes along with refs to the associated blob and/or tree objects. A tree is equivalent to a directory.