Instead, git init lets you set a template directory, the contents of which are copied over the top of the newly-created.

Set Git up to use your new template: git config -global init.templateDir ~/.config/git/templateĪ lot of Git commands let you use hooks to extend their behaviour, but git init isn’t one of them.

(You can substitute main here for whatever you’d like your new default to be.)

Inside that, create a new file called HEAD, with the contents ref: refs/heads/main.

For this example, I’ll use ~/.config/git/template.

Git doesn’t have a configuration option to override this default, but there is a workaround! How to do it Both posts cover renaming master to something different in an existing repo, but new repos will still default to master. In any case, I’m far from the only person noticing this! Fellow Adelaidean Stuart Jones and prominent Microsoftie Scott Hanselman both published posts on this exact topic yesterday alone.

main is a good one-size-fits-all replacement name, but other alternatives are more descriptive: for instance, if you’re building a hosted service, and you run automated deploys when your main branch changes, you might call it production. Separately, I learned that-contrary to what white dudes, summoned to the replies like flies to honey, will tell you whenever this comes up- the term’s usage in Git seems to have its origin in a master-and-slave metaphor used in BitKeeper. When I recently tweeted about this, the two Black folks who responded both said that despite not being paired with the term “slave”, the “master” branch does make them feel uncomfortable. The software community has been moving away from master-and-slave metaphors-slowly, and not without resistance-for some time now, but one that’s mostly escaped scrutiny until recently is Git’s default master branch.Īs far as I could tell, most of the discussions on the topic I could find online seemed to consist mostly of white people arguing with other white people about how non-white people do or should feel. Changing the default branch for new Git repositories

Git init with main branch