The git init command creates a new Git repository. It can be used to convert an existing, unversioned project to a Git repository or initialize a new empty repository. Most of the other Git commands are not available outside of an initialized repository, so this is usually the first command you’ll run in a new project.

Executing git init creates a .git subdirectory in the project root, which contains all of the necessary metadata for the repo. Aside from the .git directory, an existing project remains unaltered (unlike SVN, Git doesn’t require a .git folder in every subdirectory).

Transform the current directory into a Git repository. This adds a .git folder to the current directory and makes it possible to start recording revisions of the project.

Create an empty Git repository in the specified directory. Running this command will create a new folder called <directory containing nothing but the .git subdirectory.

Initialize an empty Git repository, but omit the working directory. Shared repositories should always be created with the --bare flag (see discussion below). Conventionally, repositories initialized with the --bare flag end in .git. For example, the bare version of a repository called my-project should be stored in a directory called my-project.git.