What’s the Difference Between Git Clone and Git Pull?

Exactly! Just to clarify, git pull actually combines two actions: it first runs git fetch to grab the changes, and then it merges those changes into your current branch. It’s like saying, ‘Hey, give me the updates and synchronize them with what I have here.’ If you just want to check for changes without merging immediately, you could use git fetch instead.

So, here’s the deal: git clone is what you use when you want to make a local copy of a repository on your machine for the first time. It grabs everything from the remote repo. On the other hand, git pull is used once you already have a local repo, and you want to fetch the latest changes from that remote repo and merge them into your local branch.

Also, keep in mind that you need to have a local repository set up to run git pull since it’s meant to update your existing code. If you're starting fresh, you always begin with git clone.