Re: [PATCH v3 4/4] doc: git-push: clarify "what to push"

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Sep 26, 2025, 01:27 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqq348admuo.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <1422594f-b0a8-4a7a-bf78-940693757224@app.fastmail.com>

"Julia Evans" <julia@jvns.ca> writes:

Show 5 quoted lines

> As I understand it, with push.default=simple, the reason you need to set
> the upstream is not to tell Git what branch to update (since Git will not
> even let you set the upstream to a branch with a different name), but
> instead it's more of a safety check to prevent you from accidentally
> pushing a branch that you didn't mean to. Is that wrong?

Your understanding is correct, but when push.default=simple castrates "git push", and you are on branch 'foo', it is dubious to argue that "git push" _knows_ it will be pushed to 'foo' at origin.

It is very much conditional---what Git is being told is that the push would be made there only if branch.foo.{remote,merge} were set up to push these. If the setting is not there, then Git does not know where to push to.

I agree with you that setting these configurations is *not* about letting Git know. It is about lifting that conditional that prevents Git from knowing where to push to.

> But I'm not sure it's true in this case: we just said above that
> "The default is `push.default=simple`, which will push to a branch with
> the same name as the current branch."

So I think this simplified statement is what causes confusion. It says push.default=simple will push to such and such place, but that is not true. push.default=simple only means that no settings that points a branch with different name as your upstream is accepted. And configured upstream is what determines what branch at what remote is updated with a push.

You can tell the same story about push.default=upstream; configured upstream is what determines what branch at what remote is updated in this case, too, and it won't push out if you do not have your upstream configured.