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.
$ git config --global init.defaultBranch main |
This updates ~/.git
file and adds the following lines...
[init] defaultBranch = main |
$ 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) |
Create the repo in GitHub without adding any files (README, License, .gitignore). If you allow Github to add files, they will be added to the master branch.
echo "# myapp" >> README.md git add README.md git commit -m "first commit" git remote add origin https://github.com/your_organization/myapp.git git push -u origin main |
NOTE: All of this is listed on the new repo page in github when you create the repo. EXCEPT the last line which specifies main as the branch instead of the default master branch provided by github.
Observations and confirmations: