In git, there can be multiple clones of a repository, each clone can 
be independently modified, and clones can push or pull changes to
one-another to get back in sync.

git-annex preserves that fundamental distributed nature of git, while
dropping the requirement that, once in sync, each clone contains all the data
that was committed to each other clone. Instead of storing the content
of a file in the repository, git-annex stores a pointer to the content.

Each git-annex repository is responsible for storing some of the content,
and can copy it to or from other repositories. [[Location_tracking]]
information is committed to git, to let repositories inform other
repositories what file contents they have available.

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The [[walkthrough]] shows how to create a distributed set of git-annex
repositories with no central repository.

Prefer a central repository like GitHub? See the
[[tips/centralized_git_repository_tutorial]].