GitHub for beginners

Git keeps the history of your code, GitHub keeps it backed up online and lets you share it. Add the AI helper Copilot, a free website on GitHub Pages and prompts that help you with all of it. As of 24 October 2026.

🧭 What's what

The three words that get mixed up most often.

Git

  • A program on your computer that remembers every saved version of your project (a commit).
  • When something breaks, you go back to the version that worked.
  • It works without the internet and without an account. For an AI agent in Cursor or Claude Code it's the safety net.

GitHub

  • A website where you keep your projects (repositories) backed up off your computer.
  • Through it you share a project, collaborate and publish a website via GitHub Pages.
  • A repository can be public or private.

GitHub Desktop

  • A free app for Windows and macOS where you control Git by clicking instead of typing commands in the terminal.
  • You see what changed, save a version and send it to GitHub.
  • A good start before you get used to commands.

🤖 GitHub Copilot

GitHub's AI helper for code. It's something different from Microsoft Copilot for Word and Excel, which you'll find in Which AI for what.

Plans

  • Copilot Free: free, 2,000 code completions a month, it picks the model itself.
  • Copilot Student: free for verified students, including the agent that does tasks on its own.
  • Pro, Pro+ and Max: paid, with more credits and better models. The agent is in all paid plans.

Where it works

  • In code editors (like VS Code) as chat and completions.
  • On github.com, in the GitHub Mobile app, in Windows Terminal and as Copilot CLI on the command line.
  • Alongside it you can use Cursor or Claude Code too. The overview is in Which AI for what.

Based on GitHub's documentation. Prices and credit counts change; the current state is on the plans page. Don't rely on guides for GitHub Spark: according to an announcement in the GitHub community forum, it hasn't accepted new apps since 4 August 2026.

🌐 A free website: GitHub Pages

It turns a repository with HTML, CSS and JavaScript into a website at a github.io address or on your own domain.

What you need to know

  • On a GitHub Free account the repository has to be public. The finished website is always visible on the internet.
  • A site can be 1 GB at most; the soft bandwidth limit is 100 GB a month and 10 builds an hour.
  • These are static files; a server with a database won't run on it.

What it isn't for

  • According to GitHub's rules, not for running an online business, an online shop or a paid service.
  • Not for pages where people enter passwords or card numbers.
  • For a website meant to earn money, Cloudflare Pages is a good fit, for example, see Deploying to Cloudflare.

🔐 Passwords and keys don't belong in a repo

  • Put passwords, API keys and tokens in a .env file and add it to .gitignore, so it never gets onto GitHub.
  • GitHub has protection turned on for personal accounts: when you try to push a known type of secret key to a public repository, it stops the push.
  • If a key leaks anyway, revoke it at the service right away and create a new one. Deleting it from the repository isn't enough; copies may already be elsewhere.

📋 Prompts to copy

They work in Copilot, Cursor, Claude Code and in an ordinary chat. Replace the yellow parts in square brackets with your own.

A commit message from the diff CopilotCursorClaude 
Here's the output of `git diff --staged`:

<diff>
[paste the output]
</diff>

Write a commit message for it: a first line under 72 characters in the form “type: what changed” (feat, fix, docs, refactor), and below it 1–3 bullet points on why.
If the diff mixes two unrelated changes, tell me and suggest how to split them into two commits.
Explain a git error CopilotCursorClaude 
Git printed this message:

<error>
[paste the whole message]
</error>

Just before that I ran: [git pull / git push / git merge].
Explain simply what happened and give the steps to fix it. For every command, write exactly what it does.
Suggest commands that delete history or my changes (`reset --hard`, `push --force`) only as the last resort, and write what I'd lose.
A README for the project CopilotClaudeChatGPT 
Write a README.md for my project. The material:
- What the project does: [1–2 sentences]
- Who it's for: [who will use it]
- How to run it: [the commands I use]
- Folder structure: [paste a listing or describe it]

Sections: What it is, Getting started (install and run), How to use it, Project structure, License: [MIT / no license yet].
Write in English, briefly, for someone seeing the project for the first time. Put commands in code blocks.
Don't make up what's not in the material; write [fill in] there.
Reviewing changes before a merge CopilotCursorClaude 
Go through these changes before they're merged into the main branch:

<diff>
[paste the diff or a link to the pull request]
</diff>

Look mainly for logic errors, missing error handling, secrets in the code (passwords, keys, tokens) and things that will break existing features.
For every finding, write the file and the line, why it's a problem and how to fix it. Order them from the most serious.
If you find nothing serious, say so straight away and don't invent small things on top.
Publish a website via GitHub Pages CursorClaude Code 
I want to publish my static website from the folder [web/] via GitHub Pages.
Account: [GitHub Free], repository: [I don't have one yet / public / private].

Walk me through it from creating the repository to a working address. For every step, say where to click what.
Before you upload anything, check that the folder contains no passwords, keys or .env file, and show me the result.
If it can't be done with my account and repository, say so straight away.