It Started With an Empty Grid
I teach DevOps. Have been doing it for a while now.
Every batch, I teach Git. Every batch, students learn it. They run git init. They run git add. They commit. They push. They smile.
Then they forget about it.
Weeks pass. Nobody opens GitHub. Then interview season comes. Someone shares their GitHub profile with me. I open it.
Empty grid. A few green squares. All bunched together, around one assignment deadline.
That hurt a little.
The problem was never Git commands. Everyone knows the commands. The problem was habit. Git never became a habit.
And habits don't come from one long class. They come from small things. Done daily.
So I started something.
Roz Ka Commit
Roz means daily in Hindi. Roz Ka Commit means every day's commit.
The rule is simple. One commit. Every single day. Pushed to GitHub.
That's it. That's the whole challenge.
Around ten of my students joined. Will it work? I don't know. Honestly, I don't.
But I wanted to try. And I didn't want to just tell them to do it. I wanted to do it with them.
The Rules Are Almost Too Easy
- One commit a day. Minimum.
- Any code counts.
- It must be pushed to GitHub.
Any code means any code. Write it yourself. Ask an AI to write it. Copy it from the internet. I don't care. Not right now.
Someone asked me, "Sir, if AI writes it, what's the point?"
Fair question.
The point is not the code. Not yet. The point is the routine. Open the terminal. Change something. Stage it. Write a commit message. Push. Get a rejected push. Fix it. Push again.
Do this every day. Soon it stops feeling like homework. It starts feeling normal.
Once the habit is there, I can push for better code. That part is easy. Building a habit from zero is the hard part.
So we start there.
Why Recruiters Care
A resume can say anything. "Proficient in Git." Everyone writes that.
A GitHub graph is different. It's hard to fake for months.
When a recruiter sees green squares, week after week, it says something. This person shows up. This person is consistent. This person uses the tools real teams use.
That's what I want for my students. A history they can show. Not a line on a resume.
Okay, Confession Time
I am doing this too.
Here's the truth. I haven't used GitHub for public projects in a very long time. My work sits in private repos. Internal tools. My homelab.
My own public graph? Nothing to show off.
So I'm in. Same rules. One commit a day.
It would be strange to ask students to build a habit I'm not building. And I need the push as much as they do.
If I miss a day, they will know. And trust me, they will tell me.
14 Days First. Then 100.
We start with 14 days.
Short enough that nobody panics. Long enough to see if the habit sticks.
If everyone finishes the 14 days properly, we go to 100.
That's where it gets interesting. By day 100, a commit should feel like brushing your teeth. You just do it. You don't think.
And somewhere in those 100 days, I hope the commits change. From "anything to save my streak" to "something I actually care about."
Let's see.
Want to Try This Yourself?
A few things that help:
- Keep one streak repo. Notes. Small scripts. Things you learned today. Now you always have something to commit.
- Commit early. Not at 11:55 PM. Trust me.
- Write proper commit messages. "update" ten days in a row teaches nothing. "Add script to check disk usage" does.
- Watch the timezone. GitHub uses the commit's timezone. A 12:30 AM commit may land on the wrong day.
- Make sure it counts. Your commit email must be linked to your GitHub account. The commit must be on the default branch, or in a merged PR.
- Do it with friends. When someone notices you missed a day, you won't miss the next one.
Join Us
Student? Working professional? Someone whose GitHub went quiet, like mine?
Come join Roz Ka Commit.
Email me at roshan4074@gmail.com. I'll add you to the group.
One commit a day. That's all.
Let's see how far we go.