Working Directory

About

In Git, the working directory (also called working tree) is the part of our local Git repository where we see and modify actual files.

Example:

When we run:

git clone https://example.com/your-repo.git

Git will:

1. Download the .git directory (where all Git history, configuration, and metadata live),

2. And also extract all files from the latest commit into our current directory.

That visible folder with code files, docs, configs, etc., is our working directory — it's what we edit.

How Is It Different From a Bare Repository?

Type	Contains Git History	Contains Files You Edit (Working Dir)	Typical Use
Regular repo	.git folder	Working directory (code files)	Development, coding
Bare repository	Git data only	No working directory	Backup, remote host

Bare repo example:

git clone --bare https://example.com/repo.git

• Creates repo.git/

• Inside: only Git history and metadata

• No code files — we can't run or edit the project here