How to `git fetch` the default branch

Question

I'm writing a generic script which fetches some branches from a set of remote repositories, and I'd like it to only fetch some of the branches. For most of the branches, this is easy because they're specified by name and I can just write a corresponding refspec, but I haven't found a way to fetch "the default branch".

I tried to pass to git fetch a refspec of the form refs/heads/HEAD:MY/LOCAL/BRANCH but that tells me:

fatal: couldn't find remote ref refs/heads/HEAD

How can I specify "the default branch" in a refspec? Currently, I just hardcode master, but of course that only works on those repositories which stick to this default.

user_7976758 · Answer

refs/heads/HEAD

It's just HEAD, not even refs/HEAD. So the command should be

git fetch origin HEAD:MY/LOCAL/BRANCH

You can see available references using

git ls-remote origin

To see just the HEAD:

git ls-remote origin HEAD

See the docs at https://git-scm.com/docs/git-ls-remote and https://git-scm.com/docs/gitrevisions

How to `git fetch` the default branch

1 Answers