Terminology

• branch Is a pointer to a commmit

  Changing the branch changes the files in the working tree.

• HEAD Is a reference to the current commit object, the parent of the next commit. The snapshot of the last commit.

  HEAD is stored in .git/HEAD

  Changes are inspected by e.g.:

      git show HEAD
      git show HEAD~
      git show HEAD~2
      ...
  

• Index Where the files are placed before they are committed, with add.

• Origin The default name for a remote repository

• local repository Another term for where you keep your copy of a Git repository on your workstation

• working tree The current branch in your workspace; you see this in git status output all the time