Git in Visual Studio - add existing project

Question

I m trying to put an existing project under Git source control  but I m unclear on several things   I have set up a  Team Foundation Service  Git account online   I currently have an ASP NET MVC 4 solution - in my Projects folder  I have created a Git  repository  locally  an empty folder currently   Should this just be my current application folder in Projects  Or does it need to be a copy   How do I get my existing files into the online repository

User · Answer

I always forget this so this is more for myself but maybe might help someone else using VS.

Visual Studio has the concept of Solutions. In git however, it has the concept of a git repository tracked by local and remote branches. All the files and folders that get added to git are local.

Now going back to Visual Studio Solutions when you create a standard template project it creates all projects locally to that solution.

So the problem happens when you add a project that is not local to the solution or to git for that matter. What happens is that the solution file .sln is updated with the project location but the actual contents of the project, project files and folders can not be added to git because they are on a separate directory or a separate network drive or one some ftp server etc.... This might be preferable if you only want a reference to a project file that gets compiled in the .sln file only or you want to source them to separate git or github repositories. But you don't want the actual files to be tracked by git locally.

To remedy this (i.e. you want to add them to your git repository) you just move the remote files of interest within the purview of the solution and its projects files so that they are local.

User · Answer

If the desired repository already exists  perhaps on GitHub  then you can clone it to your local system  and then copy the solution directory into it  Then add the files  commit the files  and push the local  This put the solution in a repository

User · Answer

On Visual Studio 2015 the only way I finally got it to work was to run git init from the root of my directory using the command line  Then I went into Team Explorer and added a local git repository  Then I selected that local git repository  went to Settings- Repository Settings  and added my Remote Repo   That s how I was finally able to integrate Visual Studio to use my existing project with git   I read all of the answers but none of them worked for me  I went to File- Add To Source Control  which was suppose to basically do the same as git init  but it didn t seem to initialize my project because when I would then go to Team Explorer all of the options were grayed out  Also nothing would show up in the Changes dialog either  Another answer stated that I just had to create a local repo in Team Explorer and then my changes would show up  but that didn t work either  All the Git options on Team Explorer only worked after I initialized my project through the command line   I m new to Visual Studio so I don t know if I just missed something obvious  but it seems like my project wasn t initializing from Visual Studio

User · Answer

Here is how to do it in Visual Studio 2015    Open the project and go to Tools    Options     Source Control  tab and select  Git  as your source control   Go to File Menu and select  Add to source control     What this does is essentially execute  git init  by visual studio creating all the bells and whistles  setup ignore files accordingly like ignore user specific files  temporary files  directory etc    Essentially your git repository has been created correct locally  this is the major step with VS project since this folder contains a lot of files that we want to ignore    Now you can connect this git repository to any other git like GitHub  BitBucket etc in git bash  outside Visual Studio    I start Git Bash session now in this working directory and since I use BitBucket  I follow the instructions given there  just copy the lines below from there       git remote add origin   https   yourusername bitbucket org yourusername hookdemo git      git push -u origin master   That s it   Afterwards you can manage the repository on git command line itself since its setup properly now

User · Answer

The easiest way is obviously as described in the MSDN article Share your code with Visual Studio 2017 and VSTS Git    Create a new local Git repository for your project by selecting Add to Source Control in the status bar in the lower right hand corner of Visual Studio  This will create a new repository in the folder the solution is in and commit your code into that repository    In the Push view in Team Explorer  select the Publish Git Repository button under Push to Visual Studio Team Services    Connect Remote Source Control and enter your repository name and select Publish Repository

User · Answer

Git in Visual Studio - add existing project  how to publish your local repository to a project on GitHub  GitLab  or the like   So  you have created a solution and you want it uploaded and versioncontroller via your Git account somewhere  Visual Studio 2015 has tools in Team Explorer for this   As Meuep mentions  load your solution and then navigate File    Add to Source Control  This is the equivalent of git init  Then you will have this     Now  select Settings    Repository Settings and scroll to Remotes     Set up origin  make sure you put this reserved name there  and set URIs   Then you may use Add  Sync and Publish

User · Answer

First of all you need to install Git software on your local development machine  e g  Git Extensions  Then do git init in the solution folder  That is the proper way to create a repository folder  Set up a reasonable  gitignore file  so you don t commit unnecessary stuff  git add git commit Add the proper remote  as described in your Team Foundation Server account git remote add origin  lt proper URL gt  git push your code   Alternatively  there are detailed guides here using the Visual Studio integration

User · Answer

If you want to open an existing project from GitHub  you need to do the following  these are steps only for Visual Studio 2013     And newer  as in older versions there are no built-in Git installation     Team explorer   Connect to teamProjects   Local GitRepositories   Clone  Copy paste your GitHub address from the browser  Select a local path for this project

User · Answer

The process is greatly simplified for VS2017   VS2019  maybe even earlier  but I have not tested  in conjunction with GitHub    Create an empty repository in GitHub    https   github com   git Install GitHub extension for Visual Studio  Follow these instructions   optionally add to source control to git initialize  -  Team explorer -  Sync -  Publish to GitHub -  https   github com   git

User · Answer

Just right click on your solution and select Add to source control  Then select Git   Now your projects has been added to a local source control  Right click on one of your files and select Commit   Then enter a commit message and select Commit  Then select Sync to synchronise your project with GitHub  It requires having a Git repository  Go to GitHub  create a new repository  copy the repository link  and add it to your remote source control server  Select Publish   That s all

User · Answer

Using SourceTree   Right click the solution name in Solution Explorer  Select  Add to Source Control    Then head over to SourceTree  and select Clone New  Select Add Working Folder and point to the new Git place you just made inside your solution   Go and grab the clone address for an empty Git   Bitbucket or GitHub  and go back to SourceTree  right click Remotes and add New Remote   Note in modern versions  go to Repositories   Add Remote      Paste your URL in that box and hit OK   This is how you can make your initial commit and push

User · Answer

I went searching around for a similar question - the way I ve managed to initialize a Git repository for an existing project file is this  disclaimer  this is done in Visual Studio 2013 Express  without a Team Foundation Server setup     Open the project in Visual Studio  Go to menu File   Add to Source Control    That did it for me - assuming Git is set up for you  you can go to menu View   Team Explorer  then double click the repository for your project file  and make your initial commit  making sure to add whatever files you d like

User · Answer

To add a project within a solution  just open the Team Explorer window and go to Changes  Then  under Untracked Files  click on View options and select Switch to Tree View  unless it is already in tree view   right click on the project root folder  and select Add

User · Answer

After slogging around Visual Studio I finally figured out the answer that took far longer than it should have   In order to take an existing project without source control and put it to an existing EMPTY  this is important  GitHub repository  the process is simple  but tricky  because your first inclination is to use the Team Explorer  which is wrong and is why you re having problems   First  add it to source control  There are some explanations of that above  and everybody gets this far   Now  this opens an empty LOCAL repository and the trick which nobody ever tells you about is to ignore the Team Explorer completely and go to the Solution Explorer  right click the solution and click Commit   This then commits all differences between your existing solution and the local repository  essentially updating it with all these new files  Give it a default commit name  initial files  or whatever floats your boat and commit   Then simply click Sync on the next screen and drop in the EMPTY GitHub repository URL  Make sure it s empty or you ll have master branch conflicts and it won t let you  So either use a new repository or delete the old one that you had previously screwed up  Bear in mind this is Visual nbsp Studio nbsp 2013  so your mileage may vary

User · Answer

For me a Git repository  not GitHub  was already created  but empty  This was my solution for adding the existing project to the Git repository    I cloned and checked out a repository with Git Extensions  Then I copied my existing project files into this repository  Added a  gitignore file  Staged and committed all files  Pushed onto the remote repository    It would be interesting to see this all done directly in Visual nbsp Studio nbsp 2015 without tools like Git Extensions  but the things I tried in Visual Studio didn t work  Add to source control is not available for my project  adding a remote didn t help  etc

User · Answer

First create a  Solution Folder  with the desired relative path  Note that Visual Studio 2012 does not create a system folder with the same relative path   Now inside that  Solution Folder  add a new project  but you must be careful when defining it that the relative path in the system matches the relative path of your new  Solution Folder   If the system folder you want does not exist  Visual nbsp Studio nbsp 2012 will now create it for the new project   As noted above  it does not do this when you add a new  Solution Folder     If you want to add an existing file with the matching relative path  you must first create the file in the matching system relative path  from outside of Visual Studio  Then you can Add existing file in Visual Studio

[git] Git in Visual Studio - add existing project?

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