Error: does not have a commit checked out

When creating a project that contains both a back-end and a front-end, you may be tempted to create two repositories, one for each of them. However, by doing so you have to jump through a few hurdles with git to link the repositories under another one so commits can be synched. This is done through submoduling. This is also NOT the route I took. I chose to house my folders for back-end and front-end within a main project directory. However, if you were to try and “git add” or “git commit” from the main directory you will get the above error in the title. This occurs do to a hidden .git file existing in the folders. By following the below steps, you will be able to “add” and “commit” without encountering the error.

Create main project directory on your PC. For example, we will name this /project

mkdir project

Change directory, cd, into the newly created /project

cd /project #will change depending on where directory is housed

Create repository under the same name in github. Do not intialize the repo with a README

Follow the below commands to push your newly created directory to the repository

echo "# project" >> README.md
git init
git add README.md
git commit -m "first commit"
git remote add origin git@github.com:githubusername/project.git
git push -u origin master

Create back-end and front-end folders using scaffolding/generators I will be using rails and react

rails new project-backend
npx create-react-app project-frontend

“cd” into both the back-end and front-end folders to check/remove .git files

cd /project/project-backend
#check for .git files using this command
ls -la
#if .git files present
rm -rf .git
cd /project/project-frontend
#check for .git files using this command
ls -la
#if .git files present
rm -rf .git

Change directory, cd, into the main /project directory

cd /project

Follow the steps to add, commit, and push changes

git add .
git commit -m "create frontend and backend scaffolding"
git push

At this point your entire project, including the back-end and front-end folders, now exist under one repository. This means that you will not have to submit commits to two different repositories. Also, for organizational purposes, your code exists in one place. Happy Coding :)