Git: How to automatically create upstream branches

Update (2023-10-16): An improved version of this post’s content appears in my new book Boost Your Git DX.

You started a new branch, worked hard on initial commits, and you’re ready to send it for review. You try to push and:

$ git push
fatal: The current branch cheese has no upstream branch.
To push the current branch and set the remote as upstream, use

    git push --set-upstream origin cheese

To have this happen automatically for branches without a tracking
upstream, see 'push.autoSetupRemote' in 'git help config'.

Git requires the --set-upstream option to create an upstream branch.

You can copy-paste Git’s suggested command there, and carry on. Or, you can follow the hint and configure Git to always automatically create the branch, and never see this message again.

The push.autoSetupRemote option and the corresponding hint text were added in Git 2.37 (2022-06-27). To enable the option, run:

$ git config --global push.autoSetupRemote true

That command will add to your global configuration file (~/.git/config/git or ~/.gitconfig):

[push]
    autoSetupRemote = true

From then on, git push on new branches will automatically create the branch:

$ git push
Enumerating objects: 1, done.
Counting objects: 100% (1/1), done.
Writing objects: 100% (1/1), 175 bytes | 175.00 KiB/s, done.
Total 1 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0
remote:
remote: Create a pull request for 'cheese' on GitHub by visiting:
remote:      https://github.com/adamchainz/example/pull/new/cheese
remote:
To github.com:adamchainz/example.git
 * [new branch]      cheese -> cheese
branch 'cheese' set up to track 'origin/cheese'.

That’s a bit simpler.

This option is not enabled by default, because it only makes sense if you use a centralized Git workflow. But you probably are, with a host like GitHub.

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• Git: How to enable autocorrect

Tags: git