GitHub-Foundations
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Foundations Certification (GitHub®-Foundations)
The GitHub Foundations Certification teaches professionals the basics of Git, repository management, collaboration tools, modern development workflows, and project management on GitHub, enabling them to apply version‑control best practices confidently.
75
Minutes
75
Questions
70/100
Passing Score
$99
Exam Cost
4
Languages
Who Should Take This
Software engineers, QA analysts, and product managers who are new to GitHub and seek formal validation of their version‑control knowledge should consider this certification. It is ideal for early‑career professionals or teams transitioning to collaborative, cloud‑based development, and it helps them demonstrate competence in repository workflows, pull‑request processes, and project tracking.
What's Covered
1
Git fundamentals, version control concepts, GitHub platform overview, account types, and GitHub Mobile.
2
Repository creation, visibility settings, forking, cloning, wikis, GitHub Pages, and repository templates.
3
Pull requests, code review, issues, discussions, GitHub Flow, branch protection, and merge strategies.
4
GitHub Codespaces, GitHub Copilot, GitHub Actions basics, and AI-assisted development features.
5
GitHub Projects, milestones, labels, and work tracking across repositories.
6
Authentication, 2FA, organization roles, team permissions, enterprise features, and security alerts.
7
Open source principles, licenses, community health files, InnerSource, GitHub Sponsors, and Marketplace.
Exam Structure
Question Types
- Multiple Choice
- Multiple Select
Scoring Method
Percentage-based scoring with a 70% minimum passing threshold
Delivery Method
PSI online proctored exam
Recertification
Recertify every 3 years by passing the current version of the exam.
What's Included in AccelaStudy® AI
Adaptive Knowledge Graph
Practice Questions
Lesson Modules
Console Simulator Labs
Exam Tips & Strategy
20 Activity Formats
Course Outline
55 learning goals
1
Introduction to Git and GitHub
2 topics
Git Fundamentals
- Describe version control systems and explain how Git provides distributed version control with local repository copies, commit history, and branch management
- Describe Git objects including commits, trees, and blobs and explain how Git tracks changes through snapshots rather than file differences
- Implement basic Git operations including init, clone, add, commit, push, pull, and status to manage local and remote repository workflows
- Implement branch creation, switching, and merging operations and explain how branching enables parallel development workflows
- Describe merge conflicts and explain how they arise when competing changes affect the same lines of code and the basic process for resolving them
- Implement Git stash operations to temporarily save uncommitted changes and restore them later when switching between branches or tasks
GitHub Platform Overview
- Describe GitHub as a cloud-based hosting service for Git repositories and explain how it extends Git with collaboration features including pull requests, issues, and actions
- Describe GitHub account types including personal, organization, and enterprise accounts and explain the feature differences between Free, Team, and Enterprise plans
- Describe GitHub Mobile capabilities and explain how it enables notification management, code review, and issue triage from mobile devices
- Implement GitHub profile configuration including README profiles, pinned repositories, contribution graph, and notification settings for effective platform usage
2
Working with GitHub Repositories
1 topic
Repository Management
- Implement repository creation with README, .gitignore, and license file initialization and configure repository settings including default branch and merge options
- Describe repository visibility options including public, private, and internal and explain how each setting controls access for different audiences
- Implement repository forking and cloning to create personal copies of repositories and establish upstream tracking for contribution workflows
- Describe GitHub repository features including wikis, GitHub Pages, release management, and repository templates and explain their purpose in project documentation and distribution
- Implement .gitignore file configuration to exclude build artifacts, dependency directories, and environment files from version control tracking
3
Collaboration Features
4 topics
Pull Requests and Code Review
- Describe the pull request workflow including creating PRs from branches, requesting reviewers, and merging changes and explain how PRs facilitate code review collaboration
- Implement pull request creation with descriptive titles, body templates, reviewers, assignees, labels, and linked issues for structured collaboration
- Implement code review using inline comments, review suggestions, approval and request-changes workflows, and CODEOWNERS files for automated reviewer assignment
- Describe merge strategies including merge commit, squash merge, and rebase merge and explain how each strategy affects commit history cleanliness and traceability
- Analyze pull request review patterns and evaluate when to require reviews, status checks, and branch protection rules for different team sizes and risk levels
Issues and Discussions
- Implement GitHub Issues with titles, descriptions, labels, milestones, and assignees to track bugs, feature requests, and tasks within a project
- Implement issue templates and issue forms to standardize bug reports and feature requests with structured fields and validation
- Describe GitHub Discussions as a forum feature for Q&A, announcements, and open-ended conversations and explain how Discussions differ from Issues in purpose and workflow
- Implement cross-referencing between issues, pull requests, and commits using GitHub keywords and mention syntax to create traceable development workflows
GitHub Flow and Branch Strategies
- Describe GitHub Flow as a lightweight branching strategy and explain the steps of creating a branch, making commits, opening a pull request, reviewing, and merging to main
- Implement branch protection rules including required reviews, status checks, signed commits, and linear history enforcement to safeguard production branches
- Analyze branching strategies and evaluate the trade-offs between GitHub Flow, Gitflow, and trunk-based development for different team sizes and release cadences
Markdown and Documentation
- Implement GitHub Flavored Markdown including headings, lists, code blocks, tables, task lists, and emoji for issue descriptions, PR bodies, and README documentation
- Implement README.md files with project description, installation instructions, usage examples, and contribution guidelines as the primary entry point for repository documentation
4
Modern Development
4 topics
GitHub Codespaces
- Describe GitHub Codespaces as cloud-hosted development environments and explain how devcontainer.json configuration provides reproducible, pre-configured workspaces
- Implement Codespace creation and configuration including machine type selection, dotfiles integration, and port forwarding for cloud-based development
- Analyze the benefits and limitations of Codespaces versus local development and evaluate cost management strategies for Codespace usage in team environments
GitHub Copilot and AI Features
- Describe GitHub Copilot as an AI pair programmer and explain how it generates code suggestions, explains code, and assists with writing tests and documentation
- Describe GitHub Copilot subscription tiers (Individual, Business, Enterprise) and explain the privacy and data handling differences between plans
GitHub Actions Overview
- Describe GitHub Actions as a CI/CD platform and explain core concepts including workflows, events, jobs, steps, runners, and the YAML workflow syntax
- Describe the GitHub Actions Marketplace and explain how pre-built actions from the community can be consumed in workflows to automate common tasks
GitHub.dev and CLI
- Describe github.dev web-based editor and explain how pressing the period key on any repository opens a lightweight VS Code editor in the browser for quick file edits
- Describe the GitHub CLI (gh) and explain how it enables repository creation, pull request management, and issue tracking from the command line
5
Project Management
1 topic
GitHub Projects and Planning
- Describe GitHub Projects (v2) including board views, table views, custom fields, and workflows for organizing and tracking work across repositories
- Implement GitHub Projects with custom fields, status columns, iterations, and automated workflows to manage team sprints and release planning
- Implement milestones to group issues and pull requests into release targets and track completion progress toward project deliverables
6
Privacy, Security, and Administration
2 topics
Authentication and Security
- Implement two-factor authentication (2FA) for GitHub accounts and describe supported methods including TOTP apps, security keys, and SMS verification
- Describe SSH key and personal access token authentication methods and explain when each method is appropriate for Git operations and API access
- Describe GitHub's security features including Dependabot alerts, secret scanning alerts, and security advisories and explain how they protect repositories from common vulnerabilities
- Implement GitHub deploy keys to grant read-only or read-write access to a single repository for automated deployment systems without using personal credentials
Organization and Enterprise Administration
- Describe GitHub organization roles including owner, member, billing manager, and outside collaborator and explain the permission levels associated with each role
- Implement team creation within organizations and configure team-level repository permissions for granular access control across multiple repositories
- Describe GitHub Enterprise features including SAML SSO, audit log streaming, IP allow lists, and enterprise-level policies and explain how they support compliance requirements
- Analyze repository permission models and evaluate when to use organization-level base permissions versus per-repository team permissions for different collaboration patterns
7
Benefits of the GitHub Community
1 topic
Open Source and Community
- Describe open source software principles and explain how GitHub enables open source contribution through forking, pull requests, and community guidelines
- Describe common open source licenses (MIT, Apache 2.0, GPL) and explain how license choice affects how others can use, modify, and distribute project code
- Implement community health files including CONTRIBUTING.md, CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md, and SECURITY.md to establish contribution guidelines and community standards
- Describe InnerSource practices and explain how organizations apply open source collaboration patterns within private repositories for internal knowledge sharing
- Describe GitHub Sponsors and GitHub Marketplace and explain how they support open source sustainability and ecosystem tool discovery
- Implement the fork-and-pull contribution workflow including forking a repository, creating a feature branch, making changes, and submitting a pull request to the upstream project
Certification Benefits
Salary Impact
$95,000
Average Salary
Related Job Roles
Software Developer
DevOps Engineer
Technical Project Manager
QA Engineer
Technical Writer
Industry Recognition
The GitHub Foundations certification is GitHub's entry-level credential validating understanding of Git, GitHub collaboration workflows, and the GitHub ecosystem. With over 100 million developers on GitHub, this certification demonstrates platform literacy that is increasingly expected across all technical roles.
Scope
Included Topics
- All domains in the GitHub Foundations Certification: Introduction to Git and GitHub (22%), Working with GitHub Repositories (8%), Collaboration Features (30%), Modern Development (13%), Project Management (7%), Privacy, Security, and Administration (10%), and Benefits of the GitHub Community (10%).
- Git version control fundamentals including repositories, commits, branches, merges, and the GitHub flow workflow.
- GitHub collaboration features including pull requests, code reviews, issues, discussions, notifications, and GitHub Pages.
- GitHub Codespaces, GitHub Copilot, GitHub Actions basics, and GitHub Mobile for modern development workflows.
- GitHub project boards, milestones, labels, and issue templates for project management.
- GitHub security features including two-factor authentication, repository visibility, organization roles, and enterprise-level administration.
- GitHub community features including open source contribution workflows, GitHub Sponsors, GitHub Marketplace, and InnerSource patterns.
Not Covered
- Advanced Git internals including object storage, packfiles, and custom merge strategies.
- GitHub Actions workflow authoring, custom action development, and CI/CD pipeline design covered by the GitHub Actions certification.
- GitHub Advanced Security features (code scanning, secret scanning, Dependabot) covered by the GHAS certification.
- GitHub Enterprise Server administration, GHES clustering, and on-premises deployment.
- Third-party CI/CD tool integration and advanced DevOps toolchain configuration.
Official Exam Page
Learn more at GitHub
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