GIT-PULL(1)

📦
version 2.56.0 · 25 versions
, in arch rolling

🌸 NAME 🌸

okay so bestie, this is the git-pull page from the Git Manual — yes, the GIT-PULL(1) one — and it does exactly this: fetch from and integrate with another repository or a local branch ✨

📜 SYNOPSIS 📜

git pull [<options>] [<repository> [<refspec>...]]

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

git pull integrates changes from a remote repository into the current branch. That’s the whole main-character job 💅

First, git pull runs git fetch with the same arguments (excluding merge options) to fetch remote branch(es). Then it decides which remote branch to integrate: if you run git pull with no arguments, this defaults to the upstream for the current branch. Then it integrates that branch into the current branch. Slay, but with branch pointers 🌈

There are 4 main options for integrating the remote branch:

  1. git pull --ff-only will only do "fast-forward" updates: it fails if your local branch has diverged from the remote branch. This is the default.
  2. git pull --rebase runs git rebase
  3. git pull --no-rebase runs git merge.
  4. git pull --squash runs git merge --squash

You can also set the configuration options pull.rebase, pull.squash, or pull.ff with your preferred behaviour. Set it and forget it, lowkey 👑

If there’s a merge conflict during the merge or rebase that you don’t want to handle, you can safely abort it with git merge --abort or git rebase --abort. No panic, bestie — there is an exit 💖

✨ OPTIONS ✨

  • <repository> — the "remote" repository to pull from. This can be either a URL (see the section GIT URLS below) or the name of a remote (see the section REMOTES below).

Defaults to the configured upstream for the current branch, or origin. See UPSTREAM BRANCHES below for more on how to configure upstreams.

  • <refspec> — which branch or other reference(s) to fetch and integrate into the current branch, for example main in git pull origin main. Defaults to the configured upstream for the current branch.

This can be a branch, tag, or other collection of reference(s). See <refspec> below under "Options related to fetching" for the full syntax, and DEFAULT BEHAVIOUR below for how git pull uses this argument to determine which remote branch to integrate.

  • -q, --quiet — this is passed to both underlying git-fetch to squelch reporting during transfer, and underlying git-merge to squelch output during merging. Quiet mode: less yapping, same work 🫶
  • -v, --verbose — pass --verbose to git-fetch and git-merge. Tell me everything, I’m nosy 💅
  • --recurse-submodules[=(yes|on-demand|no)], --no-recurse-submodules — this option controls if new commits of populated submodules should be fetched, and if the working trees of active submodules should be updated, too (see git-fetch(1), git-config(1) and gitmodules(5)).

If the checkout is done via rebase, local submodule commits are rebased as well.

If the update is done via merge, the submodule conflicts are resolved and checked out.

  • --commit, --no-commit — perform the merge and commit the result. This option can be used to override --no-commit. Only useful when merging.

With --no-commit perform the merge and stop just before creating a merge commit, to give the user a chance to inspect and further tweak the merge result before committing.

Note that fast-forward updates do not create a merge commit and therefore there is no way to stop those merges with --no-commit. Thus, if you want to ensure your branch is not changed or updated by the merge command, use --no-ff with --no-commit.

  • --edit, -e, --no-edit — invoke an editor before committing successful mechanical merge to further edit the auto-generated merge message, so that the user can explain and justify the merge. The --no-edit option can be used to accept the auto-generated message (this is generally discouraged).

Older scripts may depend on the historical behaviour of not allowing the user to edit the merge log message. They will see an editor opened when they run git merge. To make it easier to adjust such scripts to the updated behaviour, the environment variable GIT_MERGE_AUTOEDIT can be set to no at the beginning of them.

  • --cleanup=<mode> — this option determines how the merge message will be cleaned up before committing. See git-commit(1) for more details. In addition, if the <mode> is given a value of scissors, scissors will be appended to MERGE_MSG before being passed on to the commit machinery in the case of a merge conflict.
  • --ff-only — only update to the new history if there is no divergent local history. This is the default when no method for reconciling divergent histories is provided (via the --rebase flags).
  • --ff, --no-ff — when merging rather than rebasing, specifies how a merge is handled when the merged-in history is already a descendant of the current history. If merging is requested, --ff is the default unless merging an annotated (and possibly signed) tag that is not stored in its natural place in the refs/tags/ hierarchy, in which case --no-ff is assumed.

With --ff, when possible resolve the merge as a fast-forward (only update the branch pointer to match the merged branch; do not create a merge commit). When not possible (when the merged-in history is not a descendant of the current history), create a merge commit.

With --no-ff, create a merge commit in all cases, even when the merge could instead be resolved as a fast-forward.

  • -S[<key-id>], --gpg-sign[=<key-id>], --no-gpg-sign — GPG-sign the resulting merge commit. The <key-id> argument is optional and defaults to the committer identity; if specified, it must be stuck to the option without a space. --no-gpg-sign is useful to countermand both commit.gpgSign configuration variable, and earlier --gpg-sign.
  • --log[=<n>], --no-log — in addition to branch names, populate the log message with one-line descriptions from at most <n> actual commits that are being merged. See also git-fmt-merge-msg(1). Only useful when merging.

With --no-log do not list one-line descriptions from the actual commits being merged.

  • --signoff, --no-signoff — add a Signed-off-by trailer by the committer at the end of the commit log message. The meaning of a signoff depends on the project to which you’re committing. For example, it may certify that the committer has the rights to submit the work under the project’s license or agrees to some contributor representation, such as a Developer Certificate of Origin. (See https://developercertificate.org for the one used by the Linux kernel and Git projects.) Consult the documentation or leadership of the project to which you’re contributing to understand how the signoffs are used in that project.

The --no-signoff option can be used to countermand an earlier --signoff option on the command line.

Git does not (and will not) have a configuration variable to enable the --signoff command line option by default; see the commit.signoff entry in gitfaq(7) for more details.

  • --stat, -n, --no-stat — show a diffstat at the end of the merge. The diffstat is also controlled by the configuration option merge.stat.

With -n or --no-stat do not show a diffstat at the end of the merge.

  • --compact-summary — show a compact-summary at the end of the merge.
  • --squash, --no-squash — produce the working tree and index state as if a real merge happened (except for the merge information), but do not actually make a commit, move the HEAD, or record $GIT_DIR/MERGE_HEAD (to cause the next git commit command to create a merge commit). This allows you to create a single commit on top of the current branch whose effect is the same as merging another branch (or more in case of an octopus).

With --no-squash perform the merge and commit the result. This option can be used to override --squash.

With --squash, --commit is not allowed, and will fail.

Only useful when merging.

  • --verify, --no-verify — by default, the pre-merge and commit-msg hooks are run. When --no-verify is given, these are bypassed. See also githooks(5). Only useful when merging.
  • -s <strategy>, --strategy=<strategy> — use the given merge strategy; can be supplied more than once to specify them in the order they should be tried. If there is no -s option, a built-in list of strategies is used instead (ort when merging a single head, octopus otherwise).
  • -X <option>, --strategy-option=<option> — pass merge strategy specific option through to the merge strategy.
  • --verify-signatures, --no-verify-signatures — verify that the tip commit of the side branch being merged is signed with a valid key, i.e. a key that has a valid uid: in the default trust model, this means the signing key has been signed by a trusted key. If the tip commit of the side branch is not signed with a valid key, the merge is aborted.

Only useful when merging.

  • --summary, --no-summary — synonyms to --stat and --no-stat; these are deprecated and will be removed in the future. We love a heads-up 💀
  • --autostash, --no-autostash — automatically create a temporary stash entry before the operation begins, record it in the ref MERGE_AUTOSTASH and apply it after the operation ends. This means that you can run the operation on a dirty worktree. However, use with care: the final stash application after a successful merge might result in non-trivial conflicts.
  • --allow-unrelated-histories — by default, git merge command refuses to merge histories that do not share a common ancestor. This option can be used to override this safety when merging histories of two projects that started their lives independently. As that is a very rare occasion, no configuration variable to enable this by default exists or will be added.

Only useful when merging.

  • -r, --rebase[=(true|merges|false|interactive)] — rebase time, bestie 🌸
    • true — rebase the current branch on top of the upstream branch after fetching. If there is a remote-tracking branch corresponding to the upstream branch and the upstream branch was rebased since last fetched, the rebase uses that information to avoid rebasing non-local changes. This is the default.
    • merges — rebase using git rebase --rebase-merges so that the local merge commits are included in the rebase (see git-rebase(1) for details).
    • false — merge the upstream branch into the current branch.
    • interactive — enable the interactive mode of rebase.

okay quick side quest before we keep going, bestie — go peek at pull.rebase, branch.<name>.rebase and branch.autoSetupRebase in git-config(1) if you want git pull to always flex --rebase instead of merging. Set it once, never think about it again. 💅

⚠️ real talk though — this is a potentially dangerous mode of operation. It rewrites history, which does not bode well when you published that history already. Do not use this option unless you have read git-rebase(1) carefully. Like, actually read it. Not skim it. 😭
  • --no-rebase — shorthand for --rebase=false. That's the whole thing. Short king. 👑
  • --all, --no-all — fetch all the remotes, except the ones that have the remote.<name>.skipFetchAll configuration variable set. This overrides the configuration variable fetch.all. So like, all of them, but not the ones wearing a "do not perceive me" sign. 🫣
  • -a, --append — appends ref names and object names of fetched refs to the existing contents of .git/FETCH_HEAD. Without this option, old data in .git/FETCH_HEAD gets overwritten. So it's the difference between adding to the group chat and nuking it. 💀
  • --atomic — uses an atomic transaction to update local refs. Either all refs are updated, or on error, no refs are updated. All or nothing, no crumbs, periodt. ✨
  • --depth=<depth> — limits fetching to the specified number of commits from the tip of each remote branch history. If you're fetching to a shallow repository created by git clone with the --depth=<depth> option (see git-clone(1)), it deepens or shortens the history to the specified number of commits. Tags for the deepened commits are not fetched. 🙈
  • --deepen=<depth> — similar to --depth, except it specifies the number of commits from the current shallow boundary instead of from the tip of each remote branch history. Same energy, different starting line. 🏁
  • --shallow-since=<date> — deepens or shortens the history of a shallow repository to include all reachable commits after <date>. Time travel but make it a fetch. 🕰️
  • --shallow-exclude=<ref> — deepens or shortens the history of a shallow repository to exclude commits reachable from a specified remote branch or tag. This option can be specified multiple times. It's giving "blocked." 🚫
  • --unshallow — glow-up time for your repo:
    • If the source repository is complete, it converts a shallow repository to a complete one, removing all the limitations imposed by shallow repositories.
    • If the source repository is shallow, it fetches as much as possible so that the current repository has the same history as the source repository.

Either way you're getting the full picture. 🦋

  • --update-shallow — by default, when fetching from a shallow repository, git fetch refuses refs that require updating .git/shallow. This option updates .git/shallow and accepts such refs. Consent granted. ✅
  • --negotiation-restrict=(<commit>|<glob>), --negotiation-tip=(<commit>|<glob>) — the negotiation lore, buckle up:
    • By default, Git will report to the server the commits reachable from all local refs, to find common commits in an attempt to reduce the size of the to-be-received packfile. If specified, Git will only report commits reachable from the given tips. This is useful to speed up fetches when the user knows which local ref is likely to have commits in common with the upstream ref being fetched.
    • --negotiation-restrict is the preferred name for this option; --negotiation-tip is accepted as a synonym. (Same person, two usernames, iykyk.)
    • This option may be specified more than once; if so, Git will report commits reachable from any of the given commits.
    • The argument to this option may be a glob on ref names, a ref, or the (possibly abbreviated) SHA-1 of a commit. Specifying a glob is equivalent to specifying this option multiple times, one for each matching ref name.
    • See also the fetch.negotiationAlgorithm and push.negotiate configuration variables documented in git-config(1), and the --negotiate-only option below.
  • --negotiation-include=(<commit>|<glob>) — makes sure the commits at the given tips are always sent as "have" lines during fetch negotiation, regardless of what the negotiation algorithm selects. Useful when you want to guarantee that common history reachable from specific refs is always considered, even when --negotiation-restrict restricts the set of tips or when the negotiation algorithm would otherwise skip them. It's the "you WILL be perceived" of flags. 👁️
    • This option may be specified more than once; if so, each commit is sent unconditionally.
    • The argument may be an exact ref name (e.g. refs/heads/release), an object hash, or a glob pattern (e.g. refs/heads/release/{asterisk}). The pattern syntax is the same as for --negotiation-restrict.
    • If --negotiation-restrict is used, the have set is first restricted by that option and then increased to include the tips specified by --negotiation-include.
    • If this option is not specified on the command line, then any remote.<name>.negotiationInclude config values for the current remote are used instead.
  • --negotiate-only — does not fetch anything from the server. Instead it prints the ancestors of the provided --negotiation-restrict= arguments, which we have in common with the server. 🫶
    • This is incompatible with --recurse-submodules=(yes|on-demand).
    • Internally this is used to implement the push.negotiate option, see git-config(1).
  • --dry-run — shows what would be done, without making any changes. Window shopping. 🛍️
  • --porcelain — prints the output to standard output in an easy-to-parse format for scripts. See section OUTPUT in git-fetch(1) for the deets. This is incompatible with --recurse-submodules=(yes|on-demand) and takes precedence over the fetch.output config option. 🤖
  • --filter=<filter-spec> — uses the partial clone feature and requests that the server sends a subset of reachable objects according to a given object filter. When using --filter, the supplied <filter-spec> is used for the partial fetch. Basically: only send me what I asked for. 🎀
    • If --filter=auto is used, the filter specification is determined automatically by combining the filter specifications advertised by the server for the promisor remotes that the client accepts (see gitprotocol-v2(5) and the promisor.acceptFromServer configuration option in git-config(1)).
    • For details on all other available filter specifications, see the --filter=<filter-spec> option in git-rev-list(1).
    • For example, --filter=blob:none will filter out all blobs (file contents) until needed by Git. Also, --filter=blob:limit=<size> will filter out all blobs of size at least <size>.
  • -f, --force — when git fetch is used with a <src>:<dst> refspec, it may refuse to update the local branch as discussed in the <refspec> part of the git-fetch(1) documentation. This option overrides that check. "I said what I said." 💅
  • -k, --keep — keep the downloaded pack. Little souvenir. 🎁
  • --prefetch — modifies the configured refspec to place all refs into the refs/prefetch/ namespace. See the prefetch task in git-maintenance(1). 🌈
  • -p, --prune — before fetching, removes any remote-tracking references that no longer exist on the remote. Tags are not subject to pruning if they are fetched only because of the default tag auto-following or due to a --tags option. However, if tags are fetched due to an explicit refspec (either on the command line or in the remote configuration, for example if the remote was cloned with the --mirror option), then they are also subject to pruning. Supplying --prune-tags is a shorthand for providing the tag refspec. Spring cleaning core. 🧹
  • --no-tags — by default, tags that point at objects that are downloaded from the remote repository are fetched and stored locally. This option disables this automatic tag following. The default behavior for a remote may be specified with the remote.<name>.tagOpt setting. See git-config(1). Not me unsubscribing from tag notifications. 🙅
  • --refmap=<refspec> — when fetching refs listed on the command line, use the specified refspec (can be given more than once) to map the refs to remote-tracking branches, instead of the values of remote.<name>.fetch configuration variables for the remote repository. Providing an empty <refspec> to the --refmap option causes Git to ignore the configured refspecs and rely entirely on the refspecs supplied as command-line arguments. See section on "Configured Remote-tracking Branches" for details. 🗺️
  • -t, --tags — fetches all tags from the remote (i.e., fetch remote tags refs/tags/* into local tags with the same name), in addition to whatever else would otherwise be fetched. Using this option alone does not subject tags to pruning, even if --prune is used (though tags may be pruned anyway if they are also the destination of an explicit refspec; see --prune). Collect the whole set, but leave the dusting to --prune. ⭐
  • -j <n>, --jobs=<n> — parallelizes all forms of fetching up to <n> jobs at a time. Multitasking icon. 🔥
    • A value of 0 will use some reasonable default.
    • If the --multiple option was specified, the different remotes will be fetched in parallel. If multiple submodules are fetched, they will be fetched in parallel. To control them independently, use the config settings fetch.parallel and submodule.fetchJobs (see git-config(1)).
    • Typically, parallel recursive and multi-remote fetches will be faster. By default fetches are performed sequentially, not in parallel.
  • --set-upstream — if the remote is fetched successfully, adds upstream (tracking) reference, used by argument-less git-pull(1) and other commands. For more information, see branch.<name>.merge and branch.<name>.remote in git-config(1). Now your branch knows who its people are. 🫂
  • --upload-pack <upload-pack> — when given, and the repository to fetch from is handled by git fetch-pack, --exec=<upload-pack> is passed to the command to specify a non-default path for the command run on the other end. Fancy custom delivery route. 📦
  • --progress — progress status is reported on the standard error stream by default when it is attached to a terminal, unless -q is specified. This flag forces progress status even if the standard error stream is not directed to a terminal. Give me the little progress bar, I need the little progress bar. 📊
  • -o <option>, --server-option=<option> — transmits the given string to the server when communicating using protocol version 2. The given string must not contain a NUL or LF character. The server's handling of server options, including unknown ones, is server-specific. When multiple --server-option=<option> are given, they are all sent to the other side in the order listed on the command line. When no --server-option=<option> is given from the command line, the values of configuration variable remote.<name>.serverOption are used instead. Passing notes to the server, respectfully. ✉️
  • --show-forced-updates — by default, git checks if a branch is force-updated during fetch. This can be disabled through fetch.showForcedUpdates, but the --show-forced-updates option guarantees this check occurs. See git-config(1). Somebody's gotta keep receipts. 🧾
  • --no-show-forced-updates — so normally git peeks to see if a branch got force-updated during fetch 👀. Pass this flag (or set fetch.showForcedUpdates to false) and it'll skip that check for performance reasons — speed queen 💅. BUT: if you use it during git-pull, the --ff-only option will still check for forced updates before it tries a fast-forward update, no cap. Peep git-config(1) for more.
  • -4, --ipv4 — IPv4 addresses only, bestie. IPv6 who? literally ignoring it 🙈.
  • -6, --ipv6 — flip it: IPv6 addresses only, and IPv4 gets ignored. Iconic of you honestly.
  • <repository> — the "remote" repository that's the source of your fetch or pull operation 🎀. This parameter can be either a URL (see the section GIT URLS below) or the name of a remote (see the section REMOTES below). Either works, slay.
  • <refspec> — this is the one that says which refs to fetch and which local refs to update ✨. When no <refspec>s appear on the command line, the refs to fetch are read from remote.<repository>.fetch variables instead (see the section "CONFIGURED REMOTE-TRACKING BRANCHES" in git-fetch(1)).

The format of a <refspec> parameter is an optional plus +, followed by the source <src>, followed by a colon :, followed by the destination <dst>. The colon can be omitted when <dst> is empty. <src> is typically a ref, or a glob pattern with a single * that is used to match a set of refs, but it can also be a fully spelled hex object name. Yes, a whole hex object name, she's flexible like that 💁‍♀️.

A <refspec> may contain a * in its <src> to indicate a simple pattern match. Such a refspec functions like a glob that matches any ref with the pattern. A pattern <refspec> must have one and only one * in both the <src> and <dst>. It will map refs to the destination by replacing the * with the contents matched from the source. Matchy matchy 🎀.

If a refspec is prefixed by ^, it will be interpreted as a negative refspec. Rather than specifying which refs to fetch or which local refs to update, such a refspec will instead specify refs to exclude. A ref will be considered to match if it matches at least one positive refspec, and does not match any negative refspec. Negative refspecs can be useful to restrict the scope of a pattern refspec so that it will not include specific refs. Negative refspecs can themselves be pattern refspecs. However, they may only contain a <src> and do not specify a <dst>. Fully spelled out hex object names are also not supported. Soz, that's just the rules 🫶.

tag <tag> means the same as refs/tags/<tag>:refs/tags/<tag>; it requests fetching everything up to the given tag.

The remote ref that matches <src> is fetched, and if <dst> is not an empty string, an attempt is made to update the local ref that matches it.

Whether that update is allowed without --force depends on the ref namespace it's being fetched to, the type of object being fetched, and whether the update is considered to be a fast-forward. Generally, the same rules apply for fetching as when pushing, see the <refspec>... section of git-push(1) for what those are. Exceptions to those rules particular to git fetch are noted below 👇.

Until Git version 2.20, and unlike when pushing with git-push(1), any updates to refs/tags/* would be accepted without + in the refspec (or --force). When fetching, we promiscuously considered all tag updates from a remote to be forced fetches. Since Git version 2.20, fetching to update refs/tags/* works the same way as when pushing. I.e. any updates will be rejected without + in the refspec (or --force). glow-up era ✨.

Unlike when pushing with git-push(1), any updates outside of refs/{tags,heads}/* will be accepted without + in the refspec (or --force), whether that's swapping e.g. a tree object for a blob, or a commit for another commit that doesn't have the previous commit as an ancestor etc. No questions asked, she's chill like that 💜.

Unlike when pushing with git-push(1), there is no configuration which'll amend these rules, and nothing like a pre-fetch hook analogous to the pre-receive hook. No sneaky override, bestie — that's just how it is, periodt.

As with pushing with git-push(1), all of the rules described above about what's not allowed as an update can be overridden by adding an optional leading + to a refspec (or using the --force command line option). The only exception to this is that no amount of forcing will make the refs/heads/* namespace accept a non-commit object. Like, don't even try 💀.

Note 🎀 When the remote branch you want to fetch is known to be rewound and rebased regularly, it is expected that its new tip will not be a descendant of its previous tip (as stored in your remote-tracking branch the last time you fetched). You would want to use the + sign to indicate non-fast-forward updates will be needed for such branches. There is no way to determine or declare that a branch will be made available in a repository with this behavior; the pulling user simply must know this is the expected usage pattern for a branch. Iykyk, you just gotta know 😭.
Note 🦋 There is a difference between listing multiple <refspec> directly on git pull command line and having multiple remote.<repository>.fetch entries in your configuration for a <repository> and running a git pull command without any explicit <refspec> parameters. <refspec>s listed explicitly on the command line are always merged into the current branch after fetching. In other words, if you list more than one remote ref, git pull will create an Octopus merge 🐙. On the other hand, if you do not list any explicit <refspec> parameter on the command line, git pull will fetch all the <refspec>s it finds in the remote.<repository>.fetch configuration and merge only the first <refspec> found into the current branch. This is because making an Octopus from remote refs is rarely done, while keeping track of multiple remote heads in one-go by fetching more than one is often useful. So like, one is a rare flex and the other is just practical 💅.

🌈 GIT URLS 🌈

In general, URLs contain information about the transport protocol, the address of the remote server, and the path to the repository. Depending on the transport protocol, some of this information may be absent. It's giving "choose your own adventure" ✨.

Git supports ssh, git, http, and https protocols (in addition, ftp and ftps can be used for fetching, but this is inefficient and deprecated; do not use them 🙅‍♀️). Like seriously, don't. That's so 2009.

⚠️ The native transport (i.e. git:// URL) does no authentication and should be used with caution on unsecured networks. Ngl that's a walking red flag 🚩 — treat it with respect.

The following syntaxes may be used with them:

  • ssh://[<user>@]<host>[:<port>]/<path-to-git-repo>
  • git://<host>[:<port>]/<path-to-git-repo>
  • http[s]://<host>[:<port>]/<path-to-git-repo>
  • ftp[s]://<host>[:<port>]/<path-to-git-repo>

An alternative scp-like syntax may also be used with the ssh protocol:

  • [<user>@]<host>:/<path-to-git-repo>

This syntax is only recognized if there are no slashes before the first colon. This helps differentiate a local path that contains a colon. For example the local path foo:bar could be specified as an absolute path or ./foo:bar to avoid being misinterpreted as an ssh url. Sneaky little colon, honestly 🫠.

The ssh and git protocols additionally support ~<username> expansion:

  • ssh://[<user>@]<host>[:<port>]/~<user>/<path-to-git-repo>
  • git://<host>[:<port>]/~<user>/<path-to-git-repo>
  • [<user>@]<host>:~<user>/<path-to-git-repo>

For local repositories, also supported by Git natively, the following syntaxes may be used:

  • /path/to/repo.git/
  • file:///path/to/repo.git/

These two syntaxes are mostly equivalent, except when cloning, when the former implies --local option. See git-clone(1) for details. Tiny difference, big consequences 💅.

git clone, git fetch and git pull, but not git push, will also accept a suitable bundle file. See git-bundle(1).

When Git doesn't know how to handle a certain transport protocol, it attempts to use the remote-<transport> remote helper, if one exists. To explicitly request a remote helper, the following syntax may be used:

  • <transport>::<address>

where <address> may be a path, a server and path, or an arbitrary URL-like string recognized by the specific remote helper being invoked. See gitremote-helpers(7) for details. It's giving "I know a guy" energy 🧚.

If there are a large number of similarly-named remote repositories and you want to use a different format for them (such that the URLs you use will be rewritten into URLs that work), you can create a configuration section of the form:

[url "<actual-url-base>"]
        insteadOf = <other-url-base>

For example, with this:

[url "git://git.host.xz/"]
        insteadOf = host.xz:/path/to/
        insteadOf = work:

a URL like "work:repo.git" or like "host.xz:/path/to/repo.git" will be rewritten in any context that takes a URL to be "git://git.host.xz/repo.git". Obsessed with this, honestly — one config and every URL just works 👑

If you want to rewrite URLs for push only, you can create a configuration section of the form:

[url "<actual-url-base>"]
        pushInsteadOf = <other-url-base>

For example, with this:

[url "ssh://example.org/"]
        pushInsteadOf = git://example.org/

a URL like "git://example.org/path/to/repo.git" will be rewritten to "ssh://example.org/path/to/repo.git" for pushes, but pulls will still use the original URL. Best of both worlds, no cap 🌸

🦋 REMOTES 🦋

Okay bestie, so instead of passing a URL as the <repository> argument, you can literally just use the name of one of these instead:

  • a remote in the Git configuration file: $GIT_DIR/config,
  • a file in the $GIT_DIR/remotes directory, or
  • a file in the $GIT_DIR/branches directory.

And the iconic part? All of these also let you omit the refspec from the command line, because each one already contains a refspec that git will use by default. No cap, it’s giving convenience.

🎀 Named remote in configuration file 🎀

You can choose to give the name of a remote you already configured using git-remote(1), git-config(1), or even by manually editing the $GIT_DIR/config file. The URL of this remote gets used to access the repository. And the refspec of this remote gets used by default when you don’t provide a refspec on the command line. The entry in the config file would look like this:

[remote "<name>"]
        url = <URL>
        pushurl = <pushurl>
        push = <refspec>
        fetch = <refspec>

The <pushurl> is used for pushes only. It’s optional and defaults to <URL>. Pushing to a remote affects all defined pushurls — or all defined urls if no pushurls are defined. Fetch, however, will only fetch from the first defined url if multiple urls are defined. Important little distinction, bestie 💅

🌸 Named file in $GIT_DIR/remotes 🌸

You can also choose to provide the name of a file in $GIT_DIR/remotes. The URL in this file will be used to access the repository. The refspec in this file will be used as default when you don’t provide a refspec on the command line. This file should have the following format:

URL: one of the above URL formats
Push: <refspec>
Pull: <refspec>

Push: lines are used by git push and Pull: lines are used by git pull and git fetch. Multiple Push: and Pull: lines may be specified for additional branch mappings. So organized, honestly ✨

🧚 Named file in $GIT_DIR/branches 🧚

You can choose to provide the name of a file in $GIT_DIR/branches. The URL in this file will be used to access the repository. This file should have the following format:

<URL>#<head>

<URL> is required; #<head> is optional.

Depending on the operation, git will use one of the following refspecs, if you don’t provide one on the command line. <branch> is the name of this file in $GIT_DIR/branches and <head> defaults to master.

git fetch uses:

refs/heads/<head>:refs/heads/<branch>

git push uses:

HEAD:refs/heads/<head>

Slay, that’s the whole mapping moment 🌈

👑 UPSTREAM BRANCHES 👑

Branches in Git can optionally have an upstream remote branch. Git defaults to using the upstream branch for remote operations, for example:

  • It’s the default for git pull or git fetch with no arguments.
  • It’s the default for git push with no arguments, with some exceptions. For example, you can use the branch.<name>.pushRemote option to push to a different remote than you pull from, and by default with push.default=simple the upstream branch you configure must have the same name.
  • Various commands, including git checkout and git status, will show you how many commits have been added to your current branch and the upstream since you forked from it, for example "Your branch and origin/main have diverged, and have 2 and 3 different commits each respectively".

The upstream is stored in .git/config, in the "remote" and "merge" fields. For example, if main’s upstream is origin/main:

[branch "main"]
   remote = origin
   merge = refs/heads/main

You can set an upstream branch explicitly with git push --set-upstream <remote> <branch> but Git will often automatically set the upstream for you, for example:

  • When you clone a repository, Git will automatically set the upstream for the default branch.
  • If you have the push.autoSetupRemote configuration option set, git push will automatically set the upstream the first time you push a branch.
  • Checking out a remote-tracking branch with git checkout <branch> will automatically create a local branch with that name and set the upstream to the remote branch.
Note 🫶 Upstream branches are sometimes referred to as "tracking information", as in "set the branch’s tracking information". iykyk, it’s just the vibe check name for the same thing 💜

🌈 MERGE STRATEGIES 🌈

okay bestie so the merge mechanism — that's git merge and git pull, both of them — lets you pick which backend merge strategy does the actual work, and you pick it with the -s option. and some of those strategies are extra and take their own little options, which you pass along by feeding -X<option> arguments to git merge and/or git pull. iykyk 💅

ort

this is the default merge strategy when you're pulling or merging one branch. it can only resolve two heads, using a 3-way merge algorithm. and when there's more than one common ancestor available for that 3-way merge? it builds a merged tree of the common ancestors and uses that as the reference tree for the merge. ✨

and ngl, this was reported to result in fewer merge conflicts without causing mismerges — based on tests done on actual merge commits taken from Linux 2.6 kernel development history. that's receipts, not vibes. 👑

plus this strategy can detect and handle merges involving renames. it does not make use of detected copies though. and the name? it's an acronym — "Ostensibly Recursive's Twin" — because it was written as a replacement for the previous default algorithm, recursive. so iconic of it 🫶

now, submodule situation: if the path is a submodule and the submodule commit used on one side of the merge is a descendant of the submodule commit used on the other side, Git attempts to fast-forward to the descendant. otherwise, Git treats this case as a conflict, suggesting as a resolution a submodule commit that is descendant of the conflicting ones — if one exists.

the ort strategy can take these options:

  • ours — forces conflicting hunks to be auto-resolved cleanly by favoring our version. changes from the other tree that don't conflict with our side still show up in the merge result. for a binary file, the entire contents are taken from our side. ⚠️ do not confuse this with the ours merge strategy, which doesn't even look at what the other tree contains at all — it discards everything the other tree did and declares our history contains all that happened in it. two different things, bestie, don't mix them.
  • theirs — literally the opposite of ours. and note: unlike ours, there is no theirs merge strategy to confuse this merge option with. convenient 💅
  • ignore-space-change, ignore-all-space, ignore-space-at-eol, ignore-cr-at-eol — treats lines with the indicated type of whitespace change as unchanged for the sake of a three-way merge. whitespace changes mixed with other changes to a line are not ignored. see also git-diff(1) -b, -w, --ignore-space-at-eol, and --ignore-cr-at-eol.
    • if their version only introduces whitespace changes to a line, our version is used;
    • if our version introduces whitespace changes but their version includes a substantial change, their version is used;
    • otherwise, the merge proceeds in the usual way.
  • renormalize — runs a virtual check-out and check-in of all three stages of any file which needs a three-way merge. this is meant to be used when merging branches with different clean filters or end-of-line normalization rules. see "Merging branches with differing checkin/checkout attributes" in gitattributes(5) for the details.
  • no-renormalize — disables the renormalize option. it overrides the merge.renormalize configuration variable.
  • find-renames[=<n>] — turns on rename detection, optionally setting the similarity threshold. this is the default. it overrides the merge.renames configuration variable. see also git-diff(1) --find-renames.
  • rename-threshold=<n> — deprecated synonym for find-renames=<n>. old news, still here 🎀
  • no-renames — turns off rename detection. it overrides the merge.renames configuration variable. see also git-diff(1) --no-renames.
  • histogram — deprecated synonym for diff-algorithm=histogram.
  • patience — deprecated synonym for diff-algorithm=patience.
  • diff-algorithm=(histogram|minimal|myers|patience) — use a different diff algorithm while merging, which can help avoid mismerges that occur due to unimportant matching lines (like braces from distinct functions, yes those braces 🙈). see also git-diff(1) --diff-algorithm. heads up: ort defaults to diff-algorithm=histogram, while regular diffs currently default to the diff.algorithm config setting.
  • subtree[=<path>] — the more advanced form of the subtree strategy, where the strategy makes a guess on how two trees must be shifted to match with each other when merging. instead, the specified path is prefixed (or stripped from the beginning) to make the shape of the two trees match. 🧚

recursive

this is now a synonym for ort. it was an alternative implementation until v2.49.0, but got redirected to mean ort in v2.50.0. the previous recursive strategy was the default strategy for resolving two heads from Git v0.99.9k until v2.33.0. history, bestie 🦋

resolve

this can only resolve two heads (i.e. the current branch and another branch you pulled from) using a 3-way merge algorithm. it tries to carefully detect criss-cross merge ambiguities. it does not handle renames.

octopus

resolves cases with more than two heads, but refuses to do a complex merge that needs manual resolution. it's primarily meant for bundling topic branch heads together. and it's the default merge strategy when pulling or merging more than one branch. 🐙 (yes that's the actual vibe of the name)

ours

resolves any number of heads, but the resulting tree of the merge is always that of the current branch head — effectively ignoring all changes from all other branches. meant to supersede old development history of side branches. and note: this is different from the -Xours option to the ort merge strategy. i said what i said, they are not the same 💀

subtree

a modified ort strategy. when merging trees A and B, if B corresponds to a subtree of A, B is first adjusted to match the tree structure of A — instead of reading the trees at the same level. this adjustment is also done to the common ancestor tree. considerate queen ✨

⚠️ heads up, this one confuses people: with the strategies that use 3-way merge (including the default, ort), if a change is made on both branches, but later reverted on one of the branches, that change will be present in the merged result. some people find this behavior confusing. it happens because only the heads and the merge base are considered when performing a merge — not the individual commits. so the merge algorithm considers the reverted change as no change at all, and substitutes the changed version instead. no cap, that's just how it is 😭

🎀 DEFAULT BEHAVIOUR 🎀

so, often people use git pull without giving any parameter at all. traditionally, that's been equivalent to saying git pull origin. however — when the configuration branch.<name>.remote is present while on branch <name>, that value is used instead of origin. surprise upgrade 🌸

and to determine what URL to use to fetch from, the value of the configuration remote.<origin>.url is consulted, and if there's not any such variable, the value on the URL: line in $GIT_DIR/remotes/<origin> is used.

to determine what remote branches to fetch (and optionally store in the remote-tracking branches) when the command is run without any refspec parameters on the command line, the values of the configuration variable remote.<origin>.fetch are consulted. and if there aren't any, $GIT_DIR/remotes/<origin> is consulted and its Pull: lines are used. on top of the refspec formats described in the OPTIONS section, you can have a globbing refspec that looks like this:

refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*

a globbing refspec must have a non-empty RHS (i.e. it must store what was fetched in remote-tracking branches), and its LHS and RHS must end with /*. the one above specifies that all remote branches are tracked using remote-tracking branches in the refs/remotes/origin/ hierarchy under the same name. so tidy 💜

now, the rule for determining which remote branch to merge after fetching? it's a bit involved, and it's like that on purpose — to not break backward compatibility. ok so:

if explicit refspecs were given on the command line of git pull, they are all merged.

when no refspec was given on the command line, then git pull uses the refspec from the configuration or $GIT_DIR/remotes/<origin>. in those cases, the following rules apply:

  1. If branch.<name>.merge configuration for the current branch <name> exists, that is the name of the branch at the remote site that is merged.
  2. If the refspec is a globbing one, nothing is merged.
  3. Otherwise the remote branch of the first refspec is merged.

✨ EXAMPLES ✨

  • update the remote-tracking branches for the repository you cloned from, then merge one of them into your current branch:
$ git pull
$ git pull origin

normally the branch merged in is the HEAD of the remote repository, but the choice is determined by the branch.<name>.remote and branch.<name>.merge options — see git-config(1) for details. 👑

  • merge into the current branch the remote branch next:
$ git pull origin next

this leaves a copy of next temporarily in FETCH_HEAD, and updates the remote-tracking branch origin/next. the same can be done by invoking fetch and merge:

$ git fetch origin
$ git merge origin/next

and if you tried a pull which resulted in complex conflicts and you'd want to start over? you can recover with git reset. we've all been there bestie, no judgement 🫶

🔒 SECURITY 🔒

okay bestie, real talk time 💀 the fetch and push protocols are not designed to stop one side from stealing data out of the other repo that was never meant to be shared. so if you've got private data you need to protect from a malicious peer, your best option is literally just to store it in another repository. this goes for clients and servers, fr fr. and specifically: namespaces on a server are not effective for read access control — you should only grant read access to a namespace to clients that you'd trust with read access to the entire repository. no cap 👑

The known attack vectors are as follows:

  1. The victim sends have lines advertising the IDs of objects it has that are not explicitly intended to be shared but can be used to optimize the transfer if the peer also has them. The attacker chooses an object ID X to steal and sends a ref to X, but isn't required to send the content of X because the victim already has it. Now the victim believes that the attacker has X, and it sends the content of X back to the attacker later. (This attack is most straightforward for a client to perform on a server, by creating a ref to X in the namespace the client has access to and then fetching it. The most likely way for a server to perform it on a client is to "merge" X into a public branch and hope that the user does additional work on this branch and pushes it back to the server without noticing the merge.) 😭
  2. As in #1, the attacker chooses an object ID X to steal. The victim sends an object Y that the attacker already has, and the attacker falsely claims to have X and not Y, so the victim sends Y as a delta against X. The delta reveals regions of X that are similar to Y to the attacker. 🫣

🐛 BUGS 🐛

ngl, there's a known catch and it's giving "we're working on it" 🧚

Using --recurse-submodules can only fetch new commits in already checked out submodules right now. So when, e.g., upstream added a new submodule in the just-fetched commits of the superproject, the submodule itself cannot be fetched — making it impossible to check out that submodule later without having to do a fetch again. 💀 This is expected to be fixed in a future Git version. periodt.

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

go read these next, i'm obsessed:

🧚 GIT 🧚

Part of the git(1) suite 🌈 — one big happy family, iykyk.

okay that's the whole page bestie, you ate that 💅✨ this beauty came to you from Git 2.56.0, dated 2026-09-27, and it's called GIT-PULL(1) 🎀 go pull something iconic 🦋💖

📦 where this page comes from