How to Avoid Having to Do “Git Branch --set-upstream”, and Instead Default to Automatically Setup Remote Tracking?

To avoid having to manually set the upstream branch for each new branch you create and instead default to automatically set up remote tracking, you can configure Git to always set up remote tracking by default when creating new branches.

Configure Git to Auto-Track Remote Branches

1. Global Configuration:

   You can set this behavior globally so that it applies to all repositories on your machine:

    

   Copied!

   git config --global push.default current
   git config --global branch.autoSetupMerge always
   
   

- `git config --global push.default current`: This sets the default push behavior to push the current branch to its upstream counterpart.
- `git config --global branch.autoSetupMerge always`: This configures Git to always set up a tracking relationship when creating a new branch with `git checkout -b` or `git switch -c`.

1. Repository-Specific Configuration:

   If you want to set this behavior for a specific repository only, run the commands without the --global flag inside your repository:

    

   Copied!

   git config push.default current
   git config branch.autoSetupMerge always
   
   

Automatically Set Upstream Branch with git checkout or git switch

With the configuration set, new branches created with git checkout -b or git switch -c will automatically set up tracking branches. For example:

# Using git checkout
git checkout -b new-branch

# Or using git switch
git switch -c new-branch

When you push the new branch to the remote for the first time, use:

git push -u origin new-branch

After the initial push, subsequent pushes and pulls will track the remote branch automatically.

Example Workflow

1. Create and switch to a new branch:

    

   Copied!

   git checkout -b feature-xyz
   
   

2. Make some changes and commit them:

    

   Copied!

   git add .
   git commit -m "Add new feature"
   
   

3. Push the new branch to the remote repository:

    

   Copied!

   git push -u origin feature-xyz
   
   

- The `u` flag here sets the upstream tracking reference for the new branch.

After these steps, your branch feature-xyz will be automatically set to track origin/feature-xyz, and you won't need to run git branch --set-upstream manually. Future pushes and pulls will be simpler and will automatically interact with the remote branch.

Got an article suggestion? Let us know

Explore more

Git

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.