×

My Current GitHub Command Line Workflow

Written by Ken Dale
2
This post is days old.

Git https://xkcd.com/1597/

While I generally don’t do that, here’s what I currently do:

Setting up a repository locally

Using Stuntman as an example:

> git clone [email protected]:kendaleiv/stuntman.git
> cd stuntman
> git remote add upstream [email protected]:ritterim/stuntman.git
> git fetch upstream

This will instruct `git pull` to pull from the `upstream` repository:

> git branch --set-upstream-to=upstream/master
OR
> git branch --set-upstream-to=upstream/development
depending on what the default branch is.

> git pull

Favor rebase over merge

I rarely use git merge – generally only when the situation requires it. I generally use git rebase to bring my feature branches up to date when needed.

> git checkout development
> git pull
> git checkout feature-branch
> git rebase development

Feature branches in upstream

Branching is as simple as git checkout -b feature-branch. However, when it’s a branch that exists in upstream you may want to do this:

> git checkout -b feature-branch upstream/feature-branch

This way you can git pull to get the latest from the upstream repository.

Wondering if the current local branch is tracking upstream? Use git branch -vv!

When in doubt, use explicit git push

While git push without any arguments may work, if you aren’t absolutely certain where you’ll be pushing to it’s a good idea to be explicit.

> git push origin feature-branch

I haven’t been in the habit of using this implicitly at all, but maybe I should.

Tip: If you aren’t sure what will happen, add --dry-run to the command.

Other

My personal .gitconfig is published at https://github.com/kendaleiv/dotfiles/blob/master/.gitconfig – feel free to use it. Be sure to change the name and email. 🙂

How do you use GitHub? Let us know in the comments!

Ken Dale
Ken Dale
Senior Application Developer (Former)
GitHub
Suggested reading

Add And Update GitHub Tags With Node.js

GitHub
In a previous post, Leveling up our project management, I mentioned that we h...
Read now

Leveling Up Our Project Management

GitHub
For almost two years, the RIMdev team has worked exclusively in and around Gi...
Read now

Announcing RIMdev Releases

GitHub
We wanted to create a tool that allowed non-GitHub user’s access to our GitHu...
Read now

Comments

Stay fresh! The brighter green, the fresher the article!