Before you can use GitLab, you need to know a little about Git itself, what Git is, and what pushing code is. As Git is a very complex system and is worthy of a book of its own, I'm just going to cover the basics. You'll learn how to get your SSH key and how to push your first code to GitLab.

Git is in the heart of GitLab. Without it, there would be no GitLab. It is a super powerful source control system, and has some amazing features. We will take a look at some of those feature in this chapter.

In this chapter, I'll assume that you will be using Git over SSH. However, most recipes will work even if you use Git over HTTP.

If you want to learn more about Git, I recommend that you follow the try.github.io course. It's a free online workshop, and you will learn everything related to Git in an interactive way.