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What is a repository?

A repository records a set of files managed by a version control system, including the historical record of changes made to these files.

You can create as many repositories as you want. Each repository should be a single "thing", such as a research project or a journal article, and should be located in a separate directory.

You will generally have at least two copies of each repository:

  1. A local repository on your computer; and

  2. A remote repository on a service such as GitHub, or a University-provided platform (such as the University of Melbourne's GitLab instance).

You make changes in your local repository and "push" them to the remote repository. You can share this remote repository with your collaborators and supervisors, and they will be able to see all of the changes that you have pushed.

You can also allow collaborators to push their own changes to the remote repository, and then "pull" them into your local repository. This is one way in which you can use version control to work collaboratively on a project.