Understanding Upstream Branches

What is an Upstream Branch?

An upstream branch in Git is the remote branch that your local branch is “tracking.”
This means your local branch knows which remote branch it should compare itself to when you run commands like git pull or git push—so you don’t have to specify the remote branch every time.

Why Use Upstream Branches?

• Convenience:
  You can simply run git pull or git push without extra arguments, and Git knows which remote branch to use.
• Collaboration:
  Keeps your local branch in sync with the team’s shared branch on the remote server.
• Safety:
  Helps prevent mistakes, like pushing to the wrong branch.

How Do You Set an Upstream Branch?

When Creating a Local Branch from a Remote Branch

If you create a local branch from a remote branch, Git usually sets the upstream automatically:

git checkout -b my-feature origin/my-feature

• Now, my-feature (local) tracks origin/my-feature (remote).

Setting or Changing Upstream Manually

You can set or change the upstream branch for your current branch with:

git branch -u origin/main

• This tells Git: “My current branch should track origin/main.”

Or, if you want to set it while pushing for the first time:

git push -u origin my-feature

• The -u (or --set-upstream) flag tells Git to set the upstream branch.

How Do You Know What Your Upstream Branch Is?

To see what upstream branch your current branch is tracking:

git status

• You’ll see something like:
  Your branch is up to date with 'origin/main'.

Or, for more detail:

git branch -vv

• This shows all local branches and their upstream branches.

What Happens When You Pull or Push?

• git pull
  Fetches changes from the upstream branch and merges them into your local branch.
• git push
  Sends your local commits to the upstream branch on the remote.

If you don’t have an upstream branch set, Git will ask you to specify where to push or pull.

Changing or Removing Upstream Branch

• Change upstream:

  git branch -u origin/another-branch
  

• Remove upstream:

  git branch --unset-upstream
  

Tip:
Always check your upstream branch before pushing or pulling, especially if you’re working on multiple features or with