git init for existing git project

Can I connect git if I downloaded the code as zip?

Reference : https://stackoverflow.com/a/56179702

TL;DR short version relevant commands:

git init
git remote add origin git@github.com:somecompany/some-repo.git
git add .
git pull origin master

Full story: I was having trouble cloning the repo so I eventually downloaded and expanded the zip instead. I did git init after which git status showed:

On branch master

No commits yet

Untracked files:
  (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)

    .gitignore
    .rspec
    .ruby-version
    ...(all the directories of the project)...

nothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to track)

Then I added the origin with git remote add origin git@github.com:somecompany/some-repo.git

I did a git fetch which got the remote's branches info.

When I did git pull origin master it said:

From github.com:somecompany/some-repo
 * branch            master     -> FETCH_HEAD
error: The following untracked working tree files would be overwritten by merge:
    .gitignore
    .rspec
    .ruby-version
    ...(all the files of the project)...
Please move or remove them before you merge.
Aborting

I tried several things that didn't help, finally I did:

git add .

the files were all staged now but I did NOT make a commit. Instead I did:

git pull origin master which output:

From github.com:somecompany/some-repo
 * branch            master     -> FETCH_HEAD

Now when I did git status it reported:

On branch master
nothing to commit, working tree clean

And I was good to go.