I have been using GitHub for my personal and work projects for a few years now, but there were some features that I wasn’t familiar with. When GitHub released their new range of certifications, I thought it would be a good way to validate my skills as well as to learn more about the platfrom I use every day. I decided to start with the GitHub Foundation exam, which tests your understanding of the core concepts and features of the platform. In this blog post, I’ll focus on my experience of preparing to the exam, and share some useful resources.

The GitHub Foundation certification is an entry-level exam that demonstrates your ability to use GitHub for version control, collaboration, and basic repository management. This certification is ideal for developers, data engineers, IT project managers, and anyone who wants to showcase their GitHub skills.

GitHub offers several certifications, each focusing on different aspects of their platform. Apart from the Foundation exam, there are also advanced certifications like the GitHub Actions certification, which validates your skills in automating software workflows, and the GitHub Administration certification, which tests your ability to manage and maintain GitHub repositories at an organizational level.

Exam structure

The GitHub Foundation exam consists of 75 multiple-choice questions, and you have 120 minutes to complete the exam. The questions cover a wide range of topics related to GitHub, including:

• Repository creation and management
• Branching and merging
• Pull requests and code review
• Issues and project management
• GitHub Pages and wikis
• Security and administration of repositories
• Participation in the GitHub community

Before starting your preparation to the exam, I would recommend going through the official Study Guide to see the detailed list of topics covered. That will help you to identify the areas that you are less familiar with, and focus on them during the exam preparation.

If you want to know more about the certification process itself (location, technical requirements for remote exams, etc.), check out the official Candidate Handbook.

Useful resources

There are several good resources for the Foundations exam available online, both from GitHub and the community.

Let’s start with GitHub ones:

• GitHub documentation: The official GitHub documentation is a comprehensive resource that covers everything from basic setup to advanced features. It’s a great starting point to get familiar with GitHub’s functionalities.

• GitHub Foundations learning collection: This learning path on Microsfot Learn platfrom covers almost all topics that are included in the exam, and has several hands-on labs where you can practice your GitHub skills.

• GitHub Skills: If you haven’t used GitHub before or want to get some hands-on experience in a sandbox environment, this series of short interactive courses is a great soultion. The “Hello, GitHub Actions!” and “Review pull requests” courses are particularly helpful for the exam.

• GitHub YouTube Channel: GitHub’s official YouTube channel has a wealth of video tutorials and webinars on different aspects of the platform. For example, I found this “How to use GitHub Projects” playlist helpful as it gave me a good understanding of this feature I haven’t worked with before.

Now let’s look at some useful resources created by the community:

• Practice Tests: One of the best resources that helped me was ghcertified.com, a collection of practice questions. The website has questions for all GitHub exams, so I definetewly will use it again if I decide to pursue another GitHub certification. You can also contribute your own questions to the repository!

• GitHub Foundations certification course from FreeCodeCamp: This 10-hour course from freeCodeCamp covers all topics included in the exam. The video is split into short chapters making it easier to focus on one topic at a time.

• “Pro Git” Book: This free online book by Scott Chacon and Ben Straub is a detailed guide to Git, the version control system that powers GitHub. While not all sections are directly relevant to the Foundation exam, it provides a solid understanding of Git’s core concepts.

I cannot underestimate the value of getting hands-on experience with GitHub in addition to going through a course. If you are not using GitHub at work now, completing GitHub Skills labs I mentioned above or contributing to an open-source project can be a good way to practice.

If you are looking to validate your GitHub skills, the GitHub Foundation certification is a great way to showcase your skills and open up new opportunities in your career. And remember, the Foundation exam is just the beginning. Good luck!

Illustration by Storyset

github