The Atom team has released a GitHub package for Atom, enabling users to perform Git operations directly within the editor, such as staging changes, making commits, and resolving merge conflicts. Initially utilizing Nodegit, the team transitioned to shelling out to Git for better access to the full range of Git commands and features, despite some performance trade-offs. They developed a minimal Git package called dugite-native and optimized performance by parallelizing operations and using a WorkerManager to manage Git commands in separate processes, preventing UI freezes. Future plans include upgrading to Electron v1.6.x for further optimizations and enhancing Git features and GitHub integration within Atom to improve user experience.