add git branch with completely new files

Question

I have been struggling with this for a while now and was wondering how to add a branch with new files.

It seems simple and it is not an ssh key problem as I can add and edit other branches without problem and am an owner on the repo.

Although I get:

fatal: 'XXXXX' does not appear to be a git repository
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have the correct access rights
and the repository exists.

What do you mean by 'add a branch'? Do you mean create the branch or push the branch? That error is saying that you didn't connect to a remote repository, nothing about a branch. What command did you run? — Leigh, May 12 '14 at 02:06

score 0 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:27

Reminder: creating a new folder (like 'XXXXX') isn't the same as creating a new branch.

If you want a new branch with new files, ie a completely new content, you can:

remain in your git repo (where there are files already)
create an orphan branch (a branch with no commit parent, so its content will be empty)
```
git checkout --orphan newBranch
```

(See more at "In git, is there a simple way of introducing an unrelated branch to a repository?")

add your files there (you will see that the working tree is empty in that new orphan branch)
commit and push
```
git push -u origin newBranch
```

add git branch with completely new files

1 Answers1