~ ‣ mkdir -p foo ~ ‣ cd foo ~/foo ‣ git init Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/jfsiii/foo/.git/ ~/foo [master @ HEAD] ✓ ‣ git branch new-branch fatal: Not a valid object name: 'master'. ~/foo [master @ HEAD] ✓ ‣ echo 'first' > test.txt ~/foo [master @ HEAD] ✗ ‣ git add test.txt ~/foo [master @ HEAD] ✓ ‣ git commit -am 'master branch created on first commit' [master (root-commit) ff11ac5] master branch created on first commit 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+) create mode 100644 test.txt ~/foo [master @ ff11ac5] ✓ ‣ git branch new-branch ~/foo [master @ ff11ac5] ✓ ‣ git checkout new-branch Switched to branch 'new-branch' ~/foo [new-branch @ ff11ac5] ✓ ‣ git checkout -b branch-off-new-branch Switched to a new branch 'branch-off-new-branch'