Why am I getting "fatal: Not a git repository" when trying to add a remote in Git?

General Discussions
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1

I’m following a tutorial to push a local project to a remote Git repository. Everything works fine until I run this command (with all variables properly replaced):

git remote add nfsn ssh://$USERNAME@$SERVER/home/private/git/$REPONAME.git

But I get the following error:

fatal: Not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git

I’m not sure what’s causing this. Does this mean I haven’t initialized my local directory as a Git repository yet? What’s the correct way to proceed and avoid the “not a git repository” error?

Any guidance would be appreciated.

2

Hey @suneelak.673, this error usually means your current directory hasn’t been set up as a Git repository yet.

You can verify this by checking if there’s a .git folder inside your project. If not, just run:

git init

After that, try your git remote add command again.

The “not a git repository” error simply tells you Git doesn’t recognize your current folder as a repo. Easy fix: just initialize first!

3

I’ve hit this same error before and in my case, I was running the remote command from the wrong folder, one that wasn’t actually a Git repo.

Even if you’ve already done git init somewhere, double-check with:

git status

If you still get the “not a git repository” message, it means you’re either in the wrong directory or never initialized it.

Navigate to the correct folder and initialize Git before adding the remote.

Hope this works

4

If this is a brand new project and you haven’t committed anything yet, here’s what I usually do:

cd your-project-directory
git init
git add .

git commit -m "Initial commit"
git remote add origin

ssh://your_user@your_host/home/private/git/repo.git

By doing this step-by-step, you avoid the common “not a git repository” error.

Once it’s committed and the remote is added, you’re good to push. Tutorials sometimes skip this context, but this flow keeps things smooth!

Hope this was helpful :slight_smile: