Gitea - How to change the default branch name back to "master"

Question

I've installed Gitea, and every time I create a new repository it defaults the master branch name to "main".

This is a problem for two reasons.

• It is different to the default name which everyone has been used to using for many, many years
• main is a common name for files inside a repository. For example main.cpp, main.py, etc.

Is there a way to make it default back to the normal "master" naming convention? If so how do I do this?

Answer 1

When is your version of gitea changing 'master' to 'main' it should also support configuration value DEFAULT_BRANCH under the Repository section of init file. More details could be found in official documentation

Answer 2

If modifying the ini config (conf/app.ini) file:

# ...
[repository]
DEFAULT_BRANCH = master
# ...

If you happen to be running in a Docker Compose (docker-compose.yml) setup:

version: '3'
services:
  gitea:
    image: gitea/gitea:latest
    # ...
    environment:
      - GITEA__repository__DEFAULT_BRANCH=master
      # ...

• Note these are missing all the other settings that are probably needed, just showing where to put the ENV Variable.