Remote Branches in Git

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Table of contents

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1. Understanding remote branches
2. Viewing remote branches
3. Tracking branches
4. Working with remote branches
5. Deleting remote branches
6. Common scenarios

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1 - Understanding remote branches

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Three types of branches

Type	Example	Description
Local	main	On your machine
Remote-tracking	origin/main	Local copy of the remote state
Remote	On GitHub	On the server

Visualization

Votre machine                    GitHub
─────────────                    ──────

main                             main
  │                                │
  │    origin/main                 │
  │        │                       │
  └────────┘───────────────────────┘
        ↑                          ↑
    git fetch                   git push

origin/main vs main

• main: Your local branch
• origin/main: The last known version of the main branch on GitHub

After a git fetch, origin/main is updated but not main.

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2 - Viewing remote branches

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List the branches

# Branches locales
git branch

# Branches distantes
git branch -r

# Toutes les branches
git branch -a

Sample output

$ git branch -a
* main
  feature/login
  remotes/origin/main
  remotes/origin/develop
  remotes/origin/feature/api

View the details of a remote

git remote show origin

Displays:

• Remote URL
• Tracked branches
• Local branches configured for push/pull
• Deleted remote branches

Update the list of remote branches

# Récupérer les nouvelles branches
git fetch origin

# Supprimer les références aux branches supprimées
git fetch --prune
# ou
git remote prune origin

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3 - Tracking branches

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What is a tracking branch?

A local branch that "follows" a remote branch.

# Voir les branches avec leur tracking
git branch -vv

Result:

* main           abc1234 [origin/main] Dernier commit
  feature/login  def5678 [origin/feature/login: ahead 2] WIP

Configure tracking

# Lors de la création
git checkout -b feature/new origin/feature/new

# Ou après
git branch --set-upstream-to=origin/feature/new feature/new
git branch -u origin/feature/new  # raccourci

First push with tracking

git push -u origin feature/new
# Équivalent à
git push --set-upstream origin feature/new

Benefits of tracking

# Sans tracking
git pull origin main
git push origin main

# Avec tracking
git pull
git push

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4 - Working with remote branches

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Retrieve a remote branch

# Méthode 1 : Checkout direct (crée une tracking branch)
git checkout feature/api
# Git détecte origin/feature/api et crée une branche locale

# Méthode 2 : Explicite
git checkout -b feature/api origin/feature/api

# Méthode 3 : Fetch puis checkout
git fetch origin feature/api
git checkout feature/api

See the differences with the remote

# Commits locaux non poussés
git log origin/main..main

# Commits distants non récupérés
git log main..origin/main

# Après un fetch
git diff main origin/main

Ahead / Behind

git status
# Your branch is ahead of 'origin/main' by 2 commits.
# Your branch is behind 'origin/main' by 3 commits.

Status	Meaning	Action
ahead	Local commits to push	git push
behind	Remote commits to retrieve	git pull
diverged	Both	git pull then git push

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5 - Deleting remote branches

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Delete on the remote

git push origin --delete feature/old
# ou
git push origin :feature/old

Clean up local references

After deletion on GitHub, the origin/... references remain locally:

# Supprimer les références obsolètes
git fetch --prune

# Ou configurer pour toujours pruner
git config --global fetch.prune true

Delete a local and remote branch

# 1. Supprimer localement
git branch -d feature/done

# 2. Supprimer sur le remote
git push origin --delete feature/done

Cleanup script

# Supprimer toutes les branches mergées (sauf main)
git branch --merged | grep -v "main" | xargs git branch -d

# Nettoyer les remote-tracking obsolètes
git remote prune origin

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6 - Common scenarios

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Scenario 1: A colleague created a new branch

# 1. Récupérer les branches
git fetch origin

# 2. Voir les nouvelles branches
git branch -r

# 3. Checkout la branche
git checkout feature/colleague-feature

Scenario 2: Your branch is behind

$ git status
Your branch is behind 'origin/main' by 5 commits.

# Solution
git pull origin main

Scenario 3: Diverged branches

$ git status
Your branch and 'origin/main' have diverged.

# Solution 1 : Merge
git pull origin main

# Solution 2 : Rebase
git pull --rebase origin main

Scenario 4: Branch deleted on GitHub but still visible locally

# Les anciennes références traînent
git branch -r
# origin/feature/old-deleted

# Nettoyer
git fetch --prune

Command summary

Command	Description
git branch -r	List remote branches
git fetch origin	Update the references
git fetch --prune	Clean up deleted branches
git checkout -b local origin/remote	Create a tracking branch
git push origin --delete branch	Delete a remote branch
git branch -vv	See branch tracking

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