Cloud Drops - How does Git work behind the scenes?
After git init, Git creates a .git folder containing HEAD, config, description, and sub-directories including branches, objects, and refs. The HEAD file holds a symbolic ref pointing to the current branch — for example ref: refs/heads/master — and that ref only materialises as a file under .git/refs/heads/ after the first commit is made. Objects (commits, trees, blobs) are stored compressed in two-character subdirectories under .git/objects/ matching the first two hex characters of their SHA-1 hash. Use git cat-file -p <hash> to inspect any object: a commit points to a tree, a tree lists blobs and sub-trees, and a blob holds the raw file content. Git deduplicates unchanged files across commits by reusing the same blob hash, saving space. After adding a GitHub remote and pushing, a new refs/remotes/origin/main file appears, confirming that local and remote tip hashes match.
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