G'day Aldebaran,

[OT: my response only addresses GitLab and git commands — there's no Perl components.]

I use GitLab extensively for $work. I regularly use dozens of repos. I do all my work from the command line. I'm aware that a number of git UIs exist; perhaps other monks can tell you about those.

Git has a lot of commands and they take many options and arguments. I'd recommend that you bookmark "Git - Reference"; use this while reading the following and for future work.

For the following, assume I've collected all cloned repos in a 'gitdir/' directory. I've used 'git.example.com' for the base URL. The project and repo are called (unimaginatively) 'project' and 'repo', respectively.

When starting a new project, the first thing to do is clone the repository (which you indicated that you've already created).

$ cd gitdir

$ git clone https://git.example.com/project/repo.git
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• The 'https://git.example.com/project/repo.git' is obtained from the GitLab page. There's typically a large "Clone" button which provides URLs; copy the one you want.
• You'd normally need to provide credentials (username/password) to proceed.
• You should get feedback as the process is happening; it may take some time depending on the size of the repo.
• Eventually, you'll have all directories and files under "gitdir/repo/".

You can now perform a verification and, what I always do, avoid having to continually retype my username.

$ cd gitdir/repo

$ git remote -v
origin https://git.example.com/project/repo.git (fetch)
origin https://git.example.com/project/repo.git (push)

$ git remote set-url origin https://username@git.example.com/project/r
+epo.git

$ git remote -v
origin https://username@git.example.com/project/repo.git (fetch)
origin https://username@git.example.com/project/repo.git (push)
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You can now begin to add, modify or delete files under "gitdir/repo/". I recommend you use the status command often; it'll mostly tell you what you need to do next. When you do this, your current directory should be "gitdir/repo/", or one of its subdirectories.

$ git status
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Common commands you'll use at this point are:

$ git add ...

$ git commit ...

$ git push
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Following a push command, your changes should now be visible via the GitLab web interface.

Those commands probably cover 90% or more of what you'll generally need. You may also want to create branches and tag releases; very briefly:

# Create a branch
$ git branch branch_name

# Create a branch and switch to it
$ git switch -c branch_name

# Switch to an existing branch
$ git switch branch_name

# Publish a new branch (now appears in GitLab UI)
$ git push -u origin branch_name

# Tag a release (as "v1.000")
$ git tag -a 'v1.000' -m '...'

# Publish a new tag (now appears in GitLab UI)
$ git push origin 'v1.000'
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There's a lot more to git but I think this pretty much covers the basics. Revisit the reference documentation for more.