git branch: create a universe

git branch feature creates a new label called feature, pointing at the commit you are standing on right now. Note carefully what does not happen: you do not move. You stay exactly where you were, on main, with the same files. A new label now exists, that is all — the universe is created but you have not entered it.

This no-side-effect quality is why branches are cheap. Creating one costs nothing — no files are copied, no project duplicated, nothing to clean up if you change your mind. The label weighs a few bytes. Compare that with copying a project folder, and you see why git changed how people work.

git branch alone lists every label. The one with the star is where you are standing — right now, always, that star is the answer to where am I. A brand-new branch starts life pointing at the same commit as main: the two universes are identical until one of them gets a commit.

Branch names are a small craft of their own. Short, lowercase, dashes, named after the work — feature, fix-typo, new-login-page — not after people, dates, or version numbers. The name will be typed often and read in logs forever; make it describe the idea.

A new branch is born pointing at wherever you are standing when you create it. Create feature while on main's newest commit, and feature begins its life there — sharing all of main's history so far, ready to add its own commits on top. If you had created it while standing somewhere older, it would have started there instead. Where you stand when you create is where the fork begins.