How to get default Git branch?

Question

My team alternates between usage of dev and master as default branch for several repos and I would like to write a script that checks for the default branch when entering a directory. When pull requests are opened in some of these repos, they either default to 'dev' or 'master' as the merge target. I understand how to set this information but not retrieve it: https://help.github.com/articles/setting-the-default-branch/ Is there a git command available to determine default branch for remote repository?

Accepted Answer

Tested with git 2.9.4 (but possibly works in other versions) in a repo cloned from Github:

```
git symbolic-ref refs/remotes/origin/HEAD | sed 's@^refs/remotes/origin/@@'
```

Sample output:

```
master
```

Or:

```
git symbolic-ref refs/remotes/origin/HEAD --short
```

Sample output:

```
origin/master
```

How to get default Git branch?

Solution

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