New Repo with Main Branch - Samvera Branch Renaming Working Group

Upgrade git

The ability to use an alternate name for the primary branch began in git release 2.28.  There are several ways to update git.  I used Homebrew on a Mac.

$ git --version
git version 2.17.2 (Apple Git-113)
$ brew install git
...
$ git --version
git version 2.17.2 (Apple Git-113)

NOTE: The version didn't change even though brew installed the latest version.  If this happens, you may need to update the PATH.  I did the following to fix the problem.

Edit ~/.bash_profile

Add the following line near bottom of this file...

# required for git installed by Homebrew to be found
export PATH="/usr/locl/bin:${PATH}"

and execute the following to activate this change...

$ source ~/.bash_profile
$ git --version
git version 2.28.0

NOTE: You have to execute the source command in every terminal tab or restart terminal to have it fully take effect.

Configure main as the default repository for all new repos

$ git config --global init.defaultBranch main

This updates ~/.git file and adds the following lines...

[init]
        defaultBranch = main

Create repo with new default branch name

$ mkdir myapp
$ cd myapp
$ git init
Initialized empty Git repository in ...
$ git status
On branch main

No commits yet

nothing to commit (create/copy files and use "git add" to track)