Question

What does it mean when you check out a file and Git says, "You are in a 'detached HEAD' state"?

A. You are in a new branch.
B. You are in a branch other than master.
C. You are in a state where commits cannot be made.
D. You are in a clean working directory.

Answer 1

Being in a 'detached HEAD' state in Git means you've checked out a commit that isn't at the end of a branch. You can still commit, but such commits are not on any branch and may be lost if not handled properly.

Step-by-step explanation:

When Git says "You are in a 'detached HEAD' state", it means that you have checked out a specific commit that is not the tip of a branch. In this state, you are no longer working on the latest commit of a particular branch. Instead, you are working directly with an older commit. While in a detached HEAD state, you can still make commits, but those commits won't belong to any branch, and they may be lost if you switch branches and do not save this detached state to a new branch. If you wish to keep the changes you make in this state, you should create a new branch before making the commits.