One can check out a git repo with the command,

git clone ssh://orda@botwin.pas.rochester.edu/astrobear

This puts a local copy of the last release of the code in your current working directory, in a folder named astrobear. This 'local copy' of the last golden release of the code is a copy of the 'master' repo. You can see that with the command,

git branch

which shows you the current branch you are on out of the list of local branches you have checked out. If you just cloned the repo, the only branch in this list is the master. But you can see all the branches of the larger repo of the code and all of her branches, by giving the command,

git branch -a

Now, to do development, one switches to the development branch of the code, which is the 'living' part of the code (i.e. that which is being developed, tested, and updated) that exists between golden releases of the code.

You switch to different branches (to the development branch in this example) with the command,

git checkout development

Giving

git branch

Now shows you have 2 local checked out versions of the code, master and development, and that you are currently sitting in the development branch (marked by an '*').

drepository named astrobear in your current working directory.

Switching to that repo and running the follow