Translate Hosted Git Vocabulary

A hosting service puts another repository on a computer reached through a network and adds collaboration tools around it. Hosted URLs, authentication, forks, and pull requests wrap that exchange, but the Git model underneath does not change.

This lesson makes the boundaries between those terms explicit, so provider documentation cannot blur a repository, a branch, and a review proposal together. It does not ask you to choose a provider, create an account, configure authentication, or move a project onto a network.

A path becomes a hosted URL

In the local exercises, origin saved the path ../origin.git. With a hosted repository, the saved location is usually an HTTPS or SSH URL instead of a path on the same disk. The remote name origin remains an ordinary conventional name stored in your local repository.

HTTPS and SSH are ways for Git to reach the other repository. A service can require authentication, proof that it knows which account is making a request and that the account is allowed to make it. The exact sign-in, token, key, and permission rules belong to that service. They are setup choices, not missing pieces of the Git course.

Your local main and origin/main also keep their earlier meanings. Local main is the branch where you work. origin/main is your repository’s last-seen record of the remote branch. A hosting website may draw those refs with buttons and diagrams, but it does not turn them into one live shared pointer.

A fork is a hosted copy

A fork is a copy that a hosting service creates under a different account or namespace. People commonly fork a repository when they cannot or should not push branches directly to the original hosted repository.

A fork is not a branch. It is another hosted repository with its own refs and access rules. A fork is also not the same as a clone: a fork is created on the service, while a clone creates a working repository on your computer. A person may clone their fork, make local commits and branches, and later exchange work with one or more hosted repositories.

A pull request is a review proposal

A pull request is a proposal on a hosting service to review a set of commits and integrate one branch into another. Some services use the name merge request for the same general idea. The service can show the difference, collect comments, run automated checks, and record whether the proposal was accepted.

A pull request is not a Git commit and it is not the git pull command. The word “pull” in its name describes the proposed collaboration from the service’s point of view. Opening or accepting one is a hosted workflow, and different services and teams attach different rules to it.

The useful mapping is now complete: Git stores snapshots and refs; remotes connect repositories; a hosted URL gives a remote a network location; authentication controls access; a fork is another hosted repository; and a pull request adds a review conversation around commits and branches. None of those service features changes what a commit or branch is.