How to Set Your Local Branch to Track a Remote Branch in Git

If you need to set your local Git branch to track a specific remote branch, such as exercism/cook-lasagna, you can easily do this with a few commands. Here’s a quick guide to help you set up tracking.

Step 1: Switch to Your Local Branch

First, make sure you are on the local branch that you want to configure. Use the following command:

git checkout your-local-branch

Replace your-local-branch with the name of your desired branch.

Step 2: Set the Upstream Branch

To set your local branch to track the remote branch exercism/cook-lasagna, run:

git branch --set-upstream-to=origin/exercism/cook-lasagna

Alternatively, if you have local changes to push, you can accomplish both setting the upstream and pushing in one go:

git push -u origin exercism/cook-lasagna

Step 3: Verification

To verify that your local branch is now tracking the specified remote branch, execute:

git branch -vv

You should see an output indicating your local branch is tracking origin/exercism/cook-lasagna.

Setting up tracking for a remote branch is a straightforward process in Git, enhancing your workflow by keeping your local and remote repositories in sync.