Re: Usability issue: "Your branch is up to date"

>
> On Mon, Feb 3, 2025 at 7:28 PM Bram van Oosterhout
> <adriaanbram0712@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Ahhhh, this thread explains my confusion when, even though git locally
> > tells me my branch is "up to date", a fetch demonstrates the branch is
> > not up to date.
> >
> > Which begs the question: Why does git say: "Your branch is up to date
> > ..." if at best it can say: "Your
> > branch MIGHT BE up to date with ..."?
>
>
> Well, the branch _is_ up to date with your remote-tracking branch [1]
> origin/main; that doesn't mean the tracking branch is up-to-date with
> the repository origin's branch main!
>
> I find it helpful to break the notion for newcomers early on that
> origin/main somehow is "equal to" the repository named by origin's
> main branch. Git (mostly) only communicates with remote repos when you
> fetch, push, or, pull—in other words (and this bit may be more for
> Manuel), try to reinforce that things Git knows locally are only local
> and not inherently tied to other repositories. Learning this
> distributed lesson proves hard in my experience but explains a lot
> about the reality of how Git operates.
>
> Exceptions to the "remote communication" rule I can think of that
> probably don't need to clutter things for beginners:
> - git-maintenance has pre-fetching as a default task
> - git ls-remote lists remote refs by communicating with the remote
>
> > I have learned not to rely on the message and come to expect
> > (sometimes nasty) surprises when I return to a project after a few
> > months,
> >
> > Bram
>
> And thus `git fetch [--all]` because a part of your typical workflow,
> or something like `git pull --rebase [origin [main]]` before pushing.

>
> [1]: https://git-scm.com/docs/gitglossary#Documentation/gitglossary.txt-aiddefremotetrackingbrancharemote-trackingbranch
>
> --
> D. Ben Knoble