How to set upstream branch to the same name as the branch

Question

If I create a new branch and try to push it, I am told that I have to explicitly say what the name of the upstream branch needs to be.

> git checkout -b feature/long-branch-name-I-dont-want-to-have-to-type-out
Switched to a new branch 'feature/long-branch-name-I-dont-want-to-have-to-type-out'
> git push
fatal: The current branch feature/long-branch-name-I-dont-want-to-have-to-type-out has no upstream branch.
To push the current branch and set the remote as upstream, use

    git push --set-upstream origin feature/long-branch-name-I-dont-want-to-have-to-type-out

Is there some way to do that without having to type out the name of the upstream branch? I virtually always want it to be the same name on the server as it is locally.

Is there any way to do something like git push --set-upstream <current_branch_name>, independent of what the current branch name happens to be?

Sajib Khan · Answer 1 · 2022-01-10T05:03:39.207

36

Configure git config

$ git config --global push.default current

Now, after checkout to a branch, you should use simply git push

$ git checkout -b new-branch
$ git push                    # similar to git push -u origin new-branch

If you want to set upstream for the future then use --set-upstream (-u) flag:

$ git push -u origin HEAD

N.B. HEAD and local current branch normally stay in the same state.

edited Jan 10 '22 at 05:03

answered Jun 08 '17 at 21:43

Sajib Khan

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really cool for this anwser – paul cheung Sep 28 '21 at 14:15
1

This answer should not be voted higher than the accepted answer as it does not do what OP asked for. It [does not do](https://stackoverflow.com/a/44446481/1025555) `git push --set-upstream `. – Good Night Nerd Pride Jan 04 '22 at 11:48

score 17 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 08 '17 at 22:21

[Edit] sajib khan's first answer, setting push.default to current will enable pushing, but does not actually set the upstream. This means that after a future git fetch, your Git won't report ahead/behind counts, and your Git won't know the upstream to use for git rebase or git merge (or git pull either though I advise avoiding git pull).

You can use [edit, as in the second part of his answer]:

git push -u origin HEAD

If needed, this creates the branch on the other Git, so that your Git acquires the origin/ variant. Then in any case it sets that (maybe new) remote-tracking branch you have as your branch's upstream. But until origin/feature/long-branch-name-I-dont-want-to-have-to-type-out actually exists, you can't set it as the upstream.¹

¹Actually, you can, you just can't use git branch --set-upstream to do it. And, you don't want to type it in again anyway. To do it "manually" you would need:

git config \
  branch.feature/long-branch-name-I-dont-want-to-have-to-type-out.remote origin
git config \
  branch.feature/long-branch-name-I-dont-want-to-have-to-type-out.merge \
  feature/long-branch-name-I-dont-want-to-have-to-type-out

which means typing it out three times (!), or writing yourself a script.

So essentially you would want to do something like this: `git config --global alias.pushnew 'push -u origin HEAD'`. — Good Night Nerd Pride, Jan 04 '22 at 11:46
@GoodNightNerdPride: that (the `git push` I mean, not the alias) is in fact a command I run myself at times. :-) — torek, Jan 04 '22 at 18:58

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 20 '19 at 00:29

There's some handy git commands that can help out here.

git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD -> returns the current branch name

git branch -u <remote>/<branch> -> sets the current branch to track <remote>/<branch>

I do this sort of thing a lot and leverage aliases to help me out.

alias gph='git push origin $(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD)'
alias gbuh='git branch -u origin/$(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD)'

Reference:

OG answers on getting the name of the current branch newer post and OG post

Ian · Accepted Answer · 2023-04-11T23:40:33.913

This was the best version of the responses but was buried in a comment by @Good Night Nerd Pride

git config --global alias.pushnew 'push -u origin HEAD'

Explanation:

push -u origin HEAD Is the shorter way to push up the current branch name to the remote upstream.
git config --global alias.pushnew sets it so that when you run git push it will set the upstream as we did in #1.

And combine with the current accepted answer from @Sajib Khan:

git config --global push.default current

How to set upstream branch to the same name as the branch

4 Answers4