Git is not showing all branches on local

git, git-remote, github, moodle

Solution

Cloning a repo won't duplicate all the remote branches on the local repo: for a large remote repo with a lot of branches, that would pollute your local namespace with tons of branches.

I have a one-liner command in order to create local branches tracking all the remote branches of a remote repo, but this is usually not needed. You only create a local branch tracking a remote one when needed.

git checkout -b aBranch --track origin/aBranch

# or, shorter:
$ git checkout --track origin/aBranch 
Branch aBranch set up to track remote branch refs/remotes/origin/aBranch.
Switched to a new branch "aBranch"  

# even shorter at the end of this answer.

Adding a `--track` allows for setting up the configuration to mark the start-point branch as "upstream" from the new branch. This configuration will tell git to show the relationship between the two branches in `git status` and `git branch -v`. Furthermore, it directs git pull without arguments to pull from the upstream when the new branch is checked out.

kostix mentions that `--track` is implied when forking a branch off a remote branch (unless `branch.autosetupmerge` is set to `false`)

This could be enough

git checkout aBranch

The exact explanation from `git checkout` man page is:

If `<branch>` is not found but there does exist a tracking branch in exactly one remote (call it `<remote>`) with a matching name, treat as equivalent to:

$ git checkout -b <branch> --track <remote>/<branch

Problem

Original source

Related problems

• Definition of "downstream" and "upstream"
• Only master branch is visible after cloning a Git repo
• Track all remote git branches as local branches