How to set upstream branch to the same name as the branch

Question

If I create a new branch and try to push it, I am told that I have to explicitly say what the name of the upstream branch needs to be.

> git checkout -b feature/long-branch-name-I-dont-want-to-have-to-type-out
Switched to a new branch 'feature/long-branch-name-I-dont-want-to-have-to-type-out'
> git push
fatal: The current branch feature/long-branch-name-I-dont-want-to-have-to-type-out has no upstream branch.
To push the current branch and set the remote as upstream, use

    git push --set-upstream origin feature/long-branch-name-I-dont-want-to-have-to-type-out

Is there some way to do that without having to type out the name of the upstream branch? I virtually always want it to be the same name on the server as it is locally.

Is there any way to do something like git push --set-upstream <current_branch_name>, independent of what the current branch name happens to be?

Answer 1

Configure git config

$ git config --global push.default current

Now, after checkout to a branch, you should use simply git push

$ git checkout -b new-branch
$ git push                    # similar to git push -u origin new-branch

---

If you want to set upstream for the future then use --set-upstream (-u) flag:

$ git push -u origin HEAD

N.B. HEAD and local current branch normally stay in the same state.

Answer 2

[Edit] sajib khan's first answer, setting push.default to current will enable pushing, but does not actually set the upstream. This means that after a future git fetch, your Git won't report ahead/behind counts, and your Git won't know the upstream to use for git rebase or git merge (or git pull either though I advise avoiding git pull).

You can use [edit, as in the second part of his answer]:

git push -u origin HEAD

If needed, this creates the branch on the other Git, so that your Git acquires the origin/ variant. Then in any case it sets that (maybe new) remote-tracking branch you have as your branch's upstream. But until origin/feature/long-branch-name-I-dont-want-to-have-to-type-out actually exists, you can't set it as the upstream.¹

---

¹Actually, you can, you just can't use git branch --set-upstream to do it. And, you don't want to type it in again anyway. To do it "manually" you would need:

git config \
  branch.feature/long-branch-name-I-dont-want-to-have-to-type-out.remote origin
git config \
  branch.feature/long-branch-name-I-dont-want-to-have-to-type-out.merge \
  feature/long-branch-name-I-dont-want-to-have-to-type-out

which means typing it out three times (!), or writing yourself a script.

Answer 3

There's some handy git commands that can help out here.

git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD -> returns the current branch name

git branch -u <remote>/<branch> -> sets the current branch to track <remote>/<branch>

I do this sort of thing a lot and leverage aliases to help me out.

alias gph='git push origin $(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD)'
alias gbuh='git branch -u origin/$(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD)'

Reference:

• OG answers on getting the name of the current branch newer post and OG post