Create and Manage Branches in Git

Before creating a new branch, pull the changes from upstream. Your master needs to be up to date.

$ git pull

Create the branch on your local machine and switch in this branch :

$ git checkout -b [name_of_your_new_branch]</pre>

Push the branch on github :

$ git push origin [name_of_your_new_branch]

When you want to commit something in your branch, be sure to be in your branch. Add -u parameter to set-upstream.

You can see all the branches created by using :

$ git branch -a

Which will show :

approval_messages
  master
  master_clean

Add a new remote for your branch :

$ git remote add [name_of_your_remote] [name_of_your_new_branch]

Push changes from your commit into your branch :

$ git push [name_of_your_new_remote] [url]

Update your branch when the original branch from official repository has been updated :

$ git fetch [name_of_your_remote]

Then you need to apply to merge changes if your branch is derivated from develop you need to do :

$ git merge [name_of_your_remote]/develop

Delete a branch on your local filesystem :

$ git branch -d [name_of_your_new_branch]

To force the deletion of local branch on your filesystem :

$ git branch -D [name_of_your_new_branch]

Delete the branch on github :

$ git push origin :[name_of_your_new_branch]

The only difference is the: to say delete, you can do it too by using GitHub interface to remove branch: https://help.github.com/articles/deleting-unused-branches.

If you want to change default branch, it's so easy with GitHub, in your fork go into Admin and in the drop-down list default branch choose what you want.

If you want create a new branch:

$ git branch <name_of_your_new_branch>

If you want to remove stale branches (e.g., remotes that remain locally after accepted pull request):

$ git remote prune origin