40 Git for one person

What people usually ask

Set up Git for my project folder so I can track changes to my analysis scripts.

What comes back

git init and a first commit of everything in the folder: the virtual environment, two gigabytes of raw instrument exports, every figure ever produced, and a README with a path that only works on this one machine.

Ask this instead

Set up Git in <project folder> for one person, no remote yet, in this order:
1. Write .gitignore first: the venv folder, data/raw/, outputs/, .ipynb_checkpoints/, __pycache__/. Then prove it: create a probe file inside data/raw/, run git status, show that the probe does not appear, delete the probe.
2. Search every note and script for an absolute path such as C:\Users\<name>\... and list each line found; change each to a path relative to the project folder.
3. Set user.name and user.email with git config --global and read them back with git config --global --list.
4. Then the first commit: scripts, notebooks, README, requirements.txt, .gitignore. Message: "Initial commit".
5. Finish with git log --oneline and git status --ignored, both pasted in full, so I can see what is tracked and what is ignored.
Stop after step 1 and show me the probe result before going on.

Attach: Nothing.

Why it works: The ignore list is tested before anything is committed, so the first commit holds only the files a person wrote.