Welcome to GH-900 Exam Prep
This course prepares you for Exam GH-900: GitHub Foundations. In this first level you will do two things:
- Learn how the exam is organised and what you need to pass.
- Learn the first exam topic: the purpose and benefits of version control.
Before you start:
- This course follows Microsoft's Study guide for Exam GH-900: GitHub Foundations. The guide belongs to Microsoft, is not reproduced here, and is free on Microsoft Learn (learn.microsoft.com, under Credentials > Certifications > Study guides > GH-900).
- This course is independent. GitHub and Microsoft have not endorsed it.
- No course can promise a pass. Your result depends on your own study and practice.
Task 1: Understand How the Exam Is Structured
The study guide lists "Skills at a glance as of January 2026". The exam has seven domains. Each domain has a weight, given as a percentage range of the exam:
| # | Domain | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Understand Git and GitHub basics | 25–30% |
| 2 | Work with GitHub repositories | 10–15% |
| 3 | Collaborate using GitHub | 10–15% |
| 4 | Apply modern development practices | 10–15% |
| 5 | Manage projects with GitHub | 5–10% |
| 6 | Understand privacy, security, and administration | 10–15% |
| 7 | Explore the GitHub community | 5–10% |
Key facts from the guide:
- Passing score: "A score of 700 or greater is required to pass."
- Biggest domain: Git and GitHub basics, at 25–30%. That is why this course starts there.
- Smallest domains: Manage projects with GitHub, and Explore the GitHub community, at 5–10% each.
- Audience: the exam is "designed for non-developers, developers, and all GitHub users". You do not need to be a programmer.
- Feature status: most questions cover features that are generally available (GA). Commonly used Preview features may also appear.
- Recent change: the exam "changed significantly" in January 2026. Old practice material may not match it.
Do this now:
- Open the free study guide on Microsoft Learn.
- Find the "Skills at a glance" list and check it against the table above.
- Bookmark the page. Check the change log on it before your exam date.
Task 2: Learn What Version Control Is
The first skill in the guide is: "Describe the purpose and benefits of version control."
GitHub's documentation defines it this way: a version control system (VCS) tracks the history of changes as people and teams collaborate on projects together. Any earlier version of the project can be recovered at any time.
Analogy: think of a shared document with a complete, permanent change log. Every save records what changed, who changed it, when, and a note explaining why. You can go back to any earlier save.
Task 3: Learn the Four Core Benefits
Remember these four benefits. Exam questions often describe one of them without naming it.
- History. Every change is recorded, so you have a full timeline of the project, not just the latest copy.
- Rollback. If a change breaks something, you can restore an earlier working version instead of rebuilding it from memory.
- Parallel work. Several people can work on the same project at once without overwriting each other. Their changes are combined later in a controlled way.
- Traceability. GitHub's documentation lists the questions project history answers:
- Which changes were made?
- Who made the changes?
- When were the changes made?
- Why were changes needed?
Task 4: Compare Working With and Without Version Control
Scenario: A three-person team maintains a website's text files.
Without version control:
- Files are emailed back and forth or kept in a shared folder.
- Copies pile up:
home_final.html,home_final_v2.html,home_final_REAL.html. - Two people edit the same file and one person's work is silently overwritten.
- A broken page goes live. Nobody knows which edit caused it or who made it, and there is no clean copy to go back to.
With version control:
- There is one project, and every saved change is recorded (history).
- The broken change is found in the history and the last good version is restored (rollback).
- Each person works on their own changes at the same time, and the changes are combined safely (parallel work).
- Each change shows its author, its time and a message explaining why it was made (traceability).
How a rollback works in practice:
- Review the project history.
- Identify the last version that worked.
- Restore that version.
- Record the fix with a note explaining why.
To look at a project's history from the command line, Git uses this command:
git log
You do not need to run it yet. Git itself, and how it differs from GitHub, is covered in the next level.
What the Exam Asks About This
- Domain: Understand Git and GitHub basics (25–30%), under "Version control fundamentals".
- Question style: expect short scenarios such as "a team keeps overwriting each other's files" or "a release broke and the team cannot tell what changed". Your task is to name the version control benefit that solves the problem.
- Watch for: answers that describe a backup or file sharing. Version control is more than a copy. It records who, what, when and why for every change.
Key Takeaways
- GH-900 has seven domains. Git and GitHub basics is the largest (25–30%).
- You need a score of 700 or greater to pass.
- The study guide is Microsoft's and free on Microsoft Learn. This course is independent and cannot guarantee a pass.
- A version control system tracks the history of changes as people collaborate, and any earlier version can be recovered.
- The four benefits are history, rollback, parallel work and traceability.
- Traceability answers which, who, when and why for every change.