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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-25T23:39:21+00:00

I noticed the ability of git to checkout to a specific commit. After that,

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I noticed the ability of git to checkout to a specific commit. After that, I began to understand how git really works.

But I want to be sure that this is correct:
When I create a branch, it is nothing more than a tag that points to the current commit. When I checkout this branch, I checkout the commit this “tag” points to. Now, when I commit something, a new commit is created. The current checked out branch tag is now updated, so that it points to the new commit.

So… in fact, I could do all of this manually, right?
It´s just a feature to make things easier.

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  1. Editorial Team

    Yes, that’s a good model for what a branch is. Beware, though, about the terminology – git also has a concept of tags, but tags don’t move – they forever point to the same commit.

    Update: adding a little more detail, which might be of interest…

    Your current branch is stored in the file HEAD, which either points to a branch, in which case the contents look like:

    ref: refs/heads/master

    … or it points directly to a commit, in which case the contents will look like:

    2b45553eec2019594724dcbb4c252a74cbb5f38e

    In the former case, the branch master is advanced when you create a new commit, but in the latter situation (known as “detached HEAD” for hopefully obvious reasons), no branch will be changed when you create a new commit.

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