Trying to push into empty repo, get fatal: bad revision 'HEAD'

I have set up a remote repository like so:

remote $ cat .git/config [core] repositoryformatversion = 0 filemode = true bare = false logallrefupdates = true sharedrepository = 1 worktree = /srv/http/www.site.com [receive] denyNonFastforwards = true denyCurrentBranch = updateInstead

This repo is empty by default.

When I try to push into it, I get the following:

local $ git push --set-upstream production master
Counting objects: 29, done.
Delta compression using up to 8 threads.
Compressing objects: 100% (27/27), done.
Writing objects: 100% (29/29), 1.13 MiB | 0 bytes/s, done.
Total 29 (delta 3), reused 17 (delta 0)
fatal: bad revision 'HEAD'
To ssh://remote.net/srv/http/www.site.com
 ! [remote rejected] master -> master (Working directory has staged changes)
error: failed to push some refs to 'ssh://remote.net/srv/http/www.site.com'

Is this expected? Am I doing something wrong? Or, is this a bug in Git?

I would expect if you push to an empty repo, it would update it (because denyCurrentBranch = updateInstead).

Thanks