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GIT-PUSH(1) Git Manual GIT-PUSH(1)

NAME
git-push - Update remote refs along with associated objects

DESCRIPTION
Updates one or more branches, tags, or other references in a remote reposi-
tory from your local repository, and sends all necessary data that isn't
already on the remote.

The simplest way to push is git push <remote> <branch>. git push origin
main will push the local main branch to the main branch on the remote named
origin.

The <repository> argument defaults to the upstream for the current branch,
or origin if there's no configured upstream.

To decide which branches, tags, or other refs to push, Git uses (in order
of precedence):

1. The <refspec> argument(s) (for example main in git push origin main) or
the --all, --mirror, or --tags options

2. The remote.<name>.push configuration for the repository being pushed to

3. The push.default configuration. The default is push.default=simple,
which will push to a branch with the same name as the current branch.
See the CONFIGURATION section below for more on push.default.

git push may fail if you haven't set an upstream for the current branch,
depending on what push.default is set to. See the UPSTREAM BRANCHES section
below for more on how to set and use upstreams.

You can make interesting things happen to a repository every time you push
into it, by setting up hooks there. See documentation for git-receive-
pack(1).

OPTIONS
<repository>
The "remote" repository that is the destination of a push operation.
This parameter can be either a URL (see the section GIT URLS below) or
the name of a remote (see the section REMOTES below).

<refspec>...
Specify what destination ref to update with what source object.

The format for a refspec is [+]<src>[:<dst>], for example main,
main:other, or HEAD^:refs/heads/main.

The <src> is often the name of the local branch to push, but it can be
any arbitrary "SHA-1 expression" (see gitrevisions(7)).

The <dst> determines what ref to update on the remote side. It must be
the name of a branch, tag, or other ref, not an arbitrary expression.

The + is optional and does the same thing as --force.

You can write a refspec using the fully expanded form (for example
refs/heads/main:refs/heads/main) which specifies the exact source and
destination, or with a shorter form (for example main or main:other).
Here are the rules for how refspecs are expanded, as well as various
other special refspec forms:

* <src> without a :<dst> means to update the same ref as the <src>,
unless the remote.<repository>.push configuration specifies a dif-
ferent <dst>. For example, if main is a branch, then the refspec
main expands to main:refs/heads/main.

* If <dst> unambiguously refers to a ref on the <repository> remote,
then expand it to that ref. For example, if v1.0 is a tag on the
remote, then HEAD:v1.0 expands to HEAD:refs/tags/v1.0.

* If <src> resolves to a ref starting with refs/heads/ or refs/tags/,
then prepend that to <dst>. For example, if main is a branch, then
main:other expands to main:refs/heads/other

* The special refspec : (or +: to allow non-fast-forward updates) di-
rects Git to push "matching" branches: for every branch that exists
on the local side, the remote side is updated if a branch of the
same name already exists on the remote side.

* <src> may contain a * to indicate a simple pattern match. This
works like a glob that matches any ref matching the pattern. There
must be only one * in both the <src> and <dst>. It will map refs to
the destination by replacing the * with the contents matched from
the source. For example, refs/heads/*:refs/heads/* will push all
branches.

* A refspec starting with ^ is a negative refspec. This specifies
refs to exclude. A ref will be considered to match if it matches at
least one positive refspec, and does not match any negative ref-
spec. Negative refspecs can be pattern refspecs. They must only
contain a <src>. Fully spelled out hex object names are also not
supported. For example, git push origin 'refs/heads/*'
'^refs/heads/dev-*' will push all branches except for those start-
ing with dev-

* If <src> is empty, it deletes the <dst> ref from the remote reposi-
tory. For example, git push origin :dev will delete the dev branch.

* tag <tag> expands to refs/tags/<tag>:refs/tags/<tag>. This is tech-
nically a special syntax for git push and not a refspec, since in
git push origin tag v1.0 the arguments tag and v1.0 are separate.

* If the refspec can't be expanded unambiguously, error out with an
error indicating what was tried, and depending on the ad-
vice.pushUnqualifiedRefname configuration (see git-config(1)) sug-
gest what refs/ namespace you may have wanted to push to.

Not all updates are allowed: see PUSH RULES below for the details.

--all, --branches
Push all branches (i.e. refs under refs/heads/); cannot be used with
other <refspec>.

--prune
Remove remote branches that don't have a local counterpart. For example
a remote branch tmp will be removed if a local branch with the same
name doesn't exist any more. This also respects refspecs, e.g. git
push --prune remote refs/heads/*:refs/tmp/* would make sure that remote
refs/tmp/foo will be removed if refs/heads/foo doesn't exist.

--mirror
Instead of naming each ref to push, specifies that all refs under refs/
(which includes but is not limited to refs/heads/, refs/remotes/, and
refs/tags/) be mirrored to the remote repository. Newly created local
refs will be pushed to the remote end, locally updated refs will be
force updated on the remote end, and deleted refs will be removed from
the remote end. This is the default if the configuration option re-
mote.<remote>.mirror is set.

-n, --dry-run
Do everything except actually send the updates.

--porcelain
Produce machine-readable output. The output status line for each ref
will be tab-separated and sent to stdout instead of stderr. The full
symbolic names of the refs will be given.

-d, --delete
All listed refs are deleted from the remote repository. This is the
same as prefixing all refs with a colon.

--tags
All refs under refs/tags are pushed, in addition to refspecs explicitly
listed on the command line.

--follow-tags
Push all the refs that would be pushed without this option, and also
push annotated tags in refs/tags that are missing from the remote but
are pointing at commit-ish that are reachable from the refs being
pushed. This can also be specified with configuration variable
push.followTags. For more information, see push.followTags in git-con-
fig(1).

--signed, --no-signed, --signed=(true|false|if-asked)
GPG-sign the push request to update refs on the receiving side, to al-
low it to be checked by the hooks and/or be logged. Possible values
are:

false, --no-signed
no signing will be attempted.

true, --signed
the push will fail if the server does not support signed pushes.

if-asked
sign if and only if the server supports signed pushes. The push
will also fail if the actual call to gpg --sign fails. See git-re-
ceive-pack(1) for the details on the receiving end.

--atomic, --no-atomic
Use an atomic transaction on the remote side if available. Either all
refs are updated, or on error, no refs are updated. If the server does
not support atomic pushes the push will fail.

-o <option>, --push-option=<option>
Transmit the given string to the server, which passes them to the
pre-receive as well as the post-receive hook. The given string must not
contain a NUL or LF character. When multiple --push-option=<option> are
given, they are all sent to the other side in the order listed on the
command line. When no --push-option=<option> is given from the command
line, the values of configuration variable push.pushOption are used in-
stead.

--receive-pack=<git-receive-pack>, --exec=<git-receive-pack>
Path to the git-receive-pack program on the remote end. Sometimes use-
ful when pushing to a remote repository over ssh, and you do not have
the program in a directory on the default $PATH.

--force-with-lease, --no-force-with-lease, --force-with-lease=<refname>,
--force-with-lease=<refname>:<expect>
Usually, git push refuses to update a remote ref that is not an ances-
tor of the local ref used to overwrite it.

This option overrides this restriction if the current value of the re-
mote ref is the expected value. git push fails otherwise.

Imagine that you have to rebase what you have already published. You
will have to bypass the "must fast-forward" rule in order to replace
the history you originally published with the rebased history. If some-
body else built on top of your original history while you are rebasing,
the tip of the branch at the remote may advance with their commit, and
blindly pushing with --force will lose their work.

This option allows you to say that you expect the history you are up-
dating is what you rebased and want to replace. If the remote ref still
points at the commit you specified, you can be sure that no other peo-
ple did anything to the ref. It is like taking a "lease" on the ref
without explicitly locking it, and the remote ref is updated only if
the "lease" is still valid.

--force-with-lease alone, without specifying the details, will protect
all remote refs that are going to be updated by requiring their current
value to be the same as the remote-tracking branch we have for them.

--force-with-lease=<refname>, without specifying the expected value,
will protect <refname> (alone), if it is going to be updated, by re-
quiring its current value to be the same as the remote-tracking branch
we have for it.

--force-with-lease=<refname>:<expect> will protect <refname> (alone),
if it is going to be updated, by requiring its current value to be the
same as the specified value <expect> (which is allowed to be different
from the remote-tracking branch we have for the refname, or we do not
even have to have such a remote-tracking branch when this form is
used). If <expect> is the empty string, then the named ref must not al-
ready exist.

Note that all forms other than --force-with-lease=<refname>:<expect>
that specifies the expected current value of the ref explicitly are
still experimental and their semantics may change as we gain experience
with this feature.

--no-force-with-lease will cancel all the previous --force-with-lease
on the command line.

A general note on safety: supplying this option without an expected
value, i.e. as --force-with-lease or --force-with-lease=<refname> in-
teracts very badly with anything that implicitly runs git fetch on the
remote to be pushed to in the background, e.g. git fetch origin on
your repository in a cronjob.

The protection it offers over --force is ensuring that subsequent
changes your work wasn't based on aren't clobbered, but this is triv-
ially defeated if some background process is updating refs in the back-
ground. We don't have anything except the remote tracking info to go by
as a heuristic for refs you're expected to have seen & are willing to
clobber.

If your editor or some other system is running git fetch in the back-
ground for you a way to mitigate this is to simply set up another re-
mote:

git remote add origin-push $(git config remote.origin.url)
git fetch origin-push

Now when the background process runs git fetch origin the references on
origin-push won't be updated, and thus commands like:

git push --force-with-lease origin-push

Will fail unless you manually run git fetch origin-push. This method is
of course entirely defeated by something that runs git fetch --all, in
that case you'd need to either disable it or do something more tedious
like:

git fetch # update 'master' from remote
git tag base master # mark our base point
git rebase -i master # rewrite some commits
git push --force-with-lease=master:base master:master

I.e. create a base tag for versions of the upstream code that you've
seen and are willing to overwrite, then rewrite history, and finally
force push changes to master if the remote version is still at base,
regardless of what your local remotes/origin/master has been updated to
in the background.

Alternatively, specifying --force-if-includes as an ancillary option
along with --force-with-lease[=<refname>] (i.e., without saying what
exact commit the ref on the remote side must be pointing at, or which
refs on the remote side are being protected) at the time of "push" will
verify if updates from the remote-tracking refs that may have been im-
plicitly updated in the background are integrated locally before allow-
ing a forced update.

-f, --force
Usually, git push will refuse to update a branch that is not an ances-
tor of the commit being pushed.

This flag disables that check, the other safety checks in PUSH RULES
below, and the checks in --force-with-lease. It can cause the remote
repository to lose commits; use it with care.

Note that --force applies to all the refs that are pushed, hence using
it with push.default set to matching or with multiple push destinations
configured with remote.<name>.push may overwrite refs other than the
current branch (including local refs that are strictly behind their re-
mote counterpart). To force a push to only one branch, use a + in front
of the refspec to push (e.g git push origin +master to force a push to
the master branch). See the <refspec>... section above for details.

--force-if-includes, --no-force-if-includes
Force an update only if the tip of the remote-tracking ref has been in-
tegrated locally.

This option enables a check that verifies if the tip of the re-
mote-tracking ref is reachable from one of the "reflog" entries of the
local branch based in it for a rewrite. The check ensures that any up-
dates from the remote have been incorporated locally by rejecting the
forced update if that is not the case.

If the option is passed without specifying --force-with-lease, or spec-
ified along with --force-with-lease=<refname>:<expect>, it is a
"no-op".

Specifying --no-force-if-includes disables this behavior.

--repo=<repository>
This option is equivalent to the <repository> argument. If both are
specified, the command-line argument takes precedence.

-u, --set-upstream
For every branch that is up to date or successfully pushed, add up-
stream (tracking) reference, used by argument-less git-pull(1) and
other commands. For more information, see branch.<name>.merge in git-
config(1).

--thin, --no-thin
These options are passed to git-send-pack(1). A thin transfer signifi-
cantly reduces the amount of sent data when the sender and receiver
share many of the same objects in common. The default is --thin.

-q, --quiet
Suppress all output, including the listing of updated refs, unless an
error occurs. Progress is not reported to the standard error stream.

-v, --verbose
Run verbosely.

--progress
Progress status is reported on the standard error stream by default
when it is attached to a terminal, unless -q is specified. This flag
forces progress status even if the standard error stream is not di-
rected to a terminal.

--no-recurse-submodules, --recurse-submodules=(check|on-demand|only|no)
May be used to make sure all submodule commits used by the revisions to
be pushed are available on a remote-tracking branch. Possible values
are:

check
Git will verify that all submodule commits that changed in the re-
visions to be pushed are available on at least one remote of the
submodule. If any commits are missing the push will be aborted and
exit with non-zero status.

on-demand
all submodules that changed in the revisions to be pushed will be
pushed. If on-demand was not able to push all necessary revisions
it will also be aborted and exit with non-zero status.

only
all submodules will be pushed while the superproject is left un-
pushed.

no
override the push.recurseSubmodules configuration variable when no
submodule recursion is required. Similar to using --no-recurse-sub-
modules.

When using on-demand or only, if a submodule has a push.recurseSubmod-
ules=(on-demand|only) or submodule.recurse configuration, further re-
cursion will occur. In this case, only is treated as on-demand.

--verify, --no-verify
Toggle the pre-push hook (see githooks(5)). The default is --verify,
giving the hook a chance to prevent the push. With --no-verify, the
hook is bypassed completely.

-4, --ipv4
Use IPv4 addresses only, ignoring IPv6 addresses.

-6, --ipv6
Use IPv6 addresses only, ignoring IPv4 addresses.

GIT URLS
In general, URLs contain information about the transport protocol, the ad-
dress of the remote server, and the path to the repository. Depending on
the transport protocol, some of this information may be absent.

Git supports ssh, git, http, and https protocols (in addition, ftp and ftps
can be used for fetching, but this is inefficient and deprecated; do not
use them).

The native transport (i.e. git:// URL) does no authentication and should be
used with caution on unsecured networks.

The following syntaxes may be used with them:

* ssh://[<user>@]<host>[:<port>]/<path-to-git-repo>

* git://<host>[:<port>]/<path-to-git-repo>

* http[s]://<host>[:<port>]/<path-to-git-repo>

* ftp[s]://<host>[:<port>]/<path-to-git-repo>

An alternative scp-like syntax may also be used with the ssh protocol:

* [<user>@]<host>:/<path-to-git-repo>

This syntax is only recognized if there are no slashes before the first
colon. This helps differentiate a local path that contains a colon. For ex-
ample the local path foo:bar could be specified as an absolute path or
./foo:bar to avoid being misinterpreted as an ssh url.

The ssh and git protocols additionally support ~<username> expansion:

* ssh://[<user>@]<host>[:<port>]/~<user>/<path-to-git-repo>

* git://<host>[:<port>]/~<user>/<path-to-git-repo>

* [<user>@]<host>:~<user>/<path-to-git-repo>

For local repositories, also supported by Git natively, the following syn-
taxes may be used:

* /path/to/repo.git/

* file:///path/to/repo.git/

These two syntaxes are mostly equivalent, except when cloning, when the
former implies --local option. See git-clone(1) for details.

git clone, git fetch and git pull, but not git push, will also accept a
suitable bundle file. See git-bundle(1).

When Git doesn't know how to handle a certain transport protocol, it at-
tempts to use the remote-<transport> remote helper, if one exists. To ex-
plicitly request a remote helper, the following syntax may be used:

* <transport>::<address>

where <address> may be a path, a server and path, or an arbitrary URL-like
string recognized by the specific remote helper being invoked. See
gitremote-helpers(7) for details.

If there are a large number of similarly-named remote repositories and you
want to use a different format for them (such that the URLs you use will be
rewritten into URLs that work), you can create a configuration section of
the form:

[url "<actual-url-base>"]
insteadOf = <other-url-base>

For example, with this:

[url "git://git.host.xz/"]
insteadOf = host.xz:/path/to/
insteadOf = work:

a URL like "work:repo.git" or like "host.xz:/path/to/repo.git" will be
rewritten in any context that takes a URL to be
"git://git.host.xz/repo.git".

If you want to rewrite URLs for push only, you can create a configuration
section of the form:

[url "<actual-url-base>"]
pushInsteadOf = <other-url-base>

For example, with this:

[url "ssh://example.org/"]
pushInsteadOf = git://example.org/

a URL like "git://example.org/path/to/repo.git" will be rewritten to
"ssh://example.org/path/to/repo.git" for pushes, but pulls will still use
the original URL.

REMOTES
The name of one of the following can be used instead of a URL as <reposi-
tory> argument:

* a remote in the Git configuration file: $GIT_DIR/config,

* a file in the $GIT_DIR/remotes directory, or

* a file in the $GIT_DIR/branches directory.

All of these also allow you to omit the refspec from the command line be-
cause they each contain a refspec which git will use by default.

Named remote in configuration file
You can choose to provide the name of a remote which you had previously
configured using git-remote(1), git-config(1) or even by a manual edit to
the $GIT_DIR/config file. The URL of this remote will be used to access the
repository. The refspec of this remote will be used by default when you do
not provide a refspec on the command line. The entry in the config file
would appear like this:

[remote "<name>"]
url = <URL>
pushurl = <pushurl>
push = <refspec>
fetch = <refspec>

The <pushurl> is used for pushes only. It is optional and defaults to
<URL>. Pushing to a remote affects all defined pushurls or all defined urls
if no pushurls are defined. Fetch, however, will only fetch from the first
defined url if multiple urls are defined.

Named file in $GIT_DIR/remotes
You can choose to provide the name of a file in $GIT_DIR/remotes. The URL
in this file will be used to access the repository. The refspec in this
file will be used as default when you do not provide a refspec on the com-
mand line. This file should have the following format:

URL: one of the above URL formats
Push: <refspec>
Pull: <refspec>

Push: lines are used by git push and Pull: lines are used by git pull and
git fetch. Multiple Push: and Pull: lines may be specified for additional
branch mappings.

Named file in $GIT_DIR/branches
You can choose to provide the name of a file in $GIT_DIR/branches. The URL
in this file will be used to access the repository. This file should have
the following format:

<URL> is required; #<head> is optional.

Depending on the operation, git will use one of the following refspecs, if
you don't provide one on the command line. <branch> is the name of this
file in $GIT_DIR/branches and <head> defaults to master.

git fetch uses:

refs/heads/<head>:refs/heads/<branch>

git push uses:

HEAD:refs/heads/<head>

UPSTREAM BRANCHES
Branches in Git can optionally have an upstream remote branch. Git defaults
to using the upstream branch for remote operations, for example:

* It's the default for git pull or git fetch with no arguments.

* It's the default for git push with no arguments, with some exceptions.
For example, you can use the branch.<name>.pushRemote option to push to
a different remote than you pull from, and by default with push.de-
fault=simple the upstream branch you configure must have the same name.

* Various commands, including git checkout and git status, will show you
how many commits have been added to your current branch and the up-
stream since you forked from it, for example "Your branch and ori-
gin/main have diverged, and have 2 and 3 different commits each respec-
tively".

The upstream is stored in .git/config, in the "remote" and "merge" fields.
For example, if main's upstream is origin/main:

[branch "main"]
remote = origin
merge = refs/heads/main

You can set an upstream branch explicitly with git push --set-upstream <re-
mote> <branch> but Git will often automatically set the upstream for you,
for example:

* When you clone a repository, Git will automatically set the upstream
for the default branch.

* If you have the push.autoSetupRemote configuration option set, git push
will automatically set the upstream the first time you push a branch.

* Checking out a remote-tracking branch with git checkout <branch> will
automatically create a local branch with that name and set the upstream
to the remote branch.

Note

Upstream branches are sometimes referred to as "tracking information",
as in "set the branch's tracking information".

OUTPUT
The output of "git push" depends on the transport method used; this section
describes the output when pushing over the Git protocol (either locally or
via ssh).

The status of the push is output in tabular form, with each line represent-
ing the status of a single ref. Each line is of the form:

<flag> <summary> <from> -> <to> (<reason>)

If --porcelain is used, then each line of the output is of the form:

<flag> \t <from>:<to> \t <summary> (<reason>)

The status of up-to-date refs is shown only if --porcelain or --verbose op-
tion is used.

<flag>
A single character indicating the status of the ref:

(space)
for a successfully pushed fast-forward;

+
for a successful forced update;

-
for a successfully deleted ref;

*
for a successfully pushed new ref;

!
for a ref that was rejected or failed to push; and

=
for a ref that was up to date and did not need pushing.

<summary>
For a successfully pushed ref, the summary shows the old and new values
of the ref in a form suitable for using as an argument to git log (this
is <old>..<new> in most cases, and <old>...<new> for forced
non-fast-forward updates).

For a failed update, more details are given:

rejected
Git did not try to send the ref at all, typically because it is not
a fast-forward and you did not force the update.

remote rejected
The remote end refused the update. Usually caused by a hook on the
remote side, or because the remote repository has one of the fol-
lowing safety options in effect: receive.denyCurrentBranch (for
pushes to the checked out branch), receive.denyNonFastForwards (for
forced non-fast-forward updates), receive.denyDeletes or re-
ceive.denyDeleteCurrent. See git-config(1).

remote failure
The remote end did not report the successful update of the ref,
perhaps because of a temporary error on the remote side, a break in
the network connection, or other transient error.

from
The name of the local ref being pushed, minus its refs/<type>/ prefix.
In the case of deletion, the name of the local ref is omitted.

to
The name of the remote ref being updated, minus its refs/<type>/ pre-
fix.

reason
A human-readable explanation. In the case of successfully pushed refs,
no explanation is needed. For a failed ref, the reason for failure is
described.

PUSH RULES
As a safety feature, the git push command only allows certain kinds of up-
dates to prevent you from accidentally losing data on the remote.

Because branches and tags are intended to be used differently, the safety
rules for pushing to a branch are different from the rules for pushing to a
tag. In the following rules "update" means any modifications except dele-
tions and creations. Deletions and creations are always allowed, except
when forbidden by configuration or hooks.

1. If the push destination is a branch (refs/heads/*): only fast-forward
updates are allowed, which means the destination must be an ancestor of
the source commit. The source must be a commit.

2. If the push destination is a tag (refs/tags/*): all updates will be re-
jected. The source can be any object.

3. If the push destination is not a branch or tag:

* If the source is a tree or blob object, any updates will be re-
jected

* If the source is a tag or commit object, any fast-forward update is
allowed, even in cases where what's being fast-forwarded is not a
commit, but a tag object which happens to point to a new commit
which is a fast-forward of the commit the last tag (or commit) it's
replacing. Replacing a tag with an entirely different tag is also
allowed, if it points to the same commit, as well as pushing a
peeled tag, i.e. pushing the commit that existing tag object points
to, or a new tag object which an existing commit points to.

You can override these rules by passing --force or by adding the optional
leading + to a refspec. The only exceptions are that no amount of forcing
will make a branch accept a non-commit object, and forcing won't make the
remote repository accept a push that it's configured to deny.

Hooks and configuration can also override or amend these rules, see e.g.
receive.denyNonFastForwards and receive.denyDeletes in git-config(1) and
pre-receive and update in githooks(5).

NOTE ABOUT FAST-FORWARDS
When an update changes a branch (or more in general, a ref) that used to
point at commit A to point at another commit B, it is called a fast-forward
update if and only if B is a descendant of A.

In a fast-forward update from A to B, the set of commits that the original
commit A built on top of is a subset of the commits the new commit B builds
on top of. Hence, it does not lose any history.

In contrast, a non-fast-forward update will lose history. For example, sup-
pose you and somebody else started at the same commit X, and you built a
history leading to commit B while the other person built a history leading
to commit A. The history looks like this:

B
/
---X---A

Further suppose that the other person already pushed changes leading to A
back to the original repository from which you two obtained the original
commit X.

The push done by the other person updated the branch that used to point at
commit X to point at commit A. It is a fast-forward.

But if you try to push, you will attempt to update the branch (that now
points at A) with commit B. This does not fast-forward. If you did so, the
changes introduced by commit A will be lost, because everybody will now
start building on top of B.

The command by default does not allow an update that is not a fast-forward
to prevent such loss of history.

If you do not want to lose your work (history from X to B) or the work by
the other person (history from X to A), you would need to first fetch the
history from the repository, create a history that contains changes done by
both parties, and push the result back.

You can perform "git pull", resolve potential conflicts, and "git push" the
result. A "git pull" will create a merge commit C between commits A and B.

B---C
/ /
---X---A

Updating A with the resulting merge commit will fast-forward and your push
will be accepted.

Alternatively, you can rebase your change between X and B on top of A, with
git pull --rebase, and push the result back. The rebase will create a new
commit D that builds the change between X and B on top of A.

B D
/ /
---X---A

Again, updating A with this commit will fast-forward and your push will be
accepted.

There is another common situation where you may encounter non-fast-forward
rejection when you try to push, and it is possible even when you are push-
ing into a repository nobody else pushes into. After you push commit A
yourself (in the first picture in this section), replace it with git commit
--amend to produce commit B, and you try to push it out, because forgot
that you have pushed A out already. In such a case, and only if you are
certain that nobody in the meantime fetched your earlier commit A (and
started building on top of it), you can run git push --force to overwrite
it. In other words, git push --force is a method reserved for a case where
you do mean to lose history.

EXAMPLES
git push
Works like git push <remote>, where <remote> is the current branch's
remote (or origin, if no remote is configured for the current branch).

git push origin
Without additional configuration, pushes the current branch to the con-
figured upstream (branch.<name>.merge configuration variable) if it has
the same name as the current branch, and errors out without pushing
otherwise.

The default behavior of this command when no <refspec> is given can be
configured by setting the push option of the remote, or the push.de-
fault configuration variable.

For example, to default to pushing only the current branch to origin
use git config remote.origin.push HEAD. Any valid <refspec> (like the
ones in the examples below) can be configured as the default for git
push origin.

git push origin :
Push "matching" branches to origin. See <refspec> in the OPTIONS sec-
tion above for a description of "matching" branches.

git push origin master
Find a ref that matches master in the source repository (most likely,
it would find refs/heads/master), and update the same ref (e.g.
refs/heads/master) in origin repository with it. If master did not ex-
ist remotely, it would be created.

git push origin HEAD
A handy way to push the current branch to the same name on the remote.

git push mothership master:satellite/master dev:satellite/dev
Use the source ref that matches master (e.g. refs/heads/master) to up-
date the ref that matches satellite/master (most probably refs/re-
motes/satellite/master) in the mothership repository; do the same for
dev and satellite/dev.

See the section describing <refspec>... above for a discussion of the
matching semantics.

This is to emulate git fetch run on the mothership using git push that
is run in the opposite direction in order to integrate the work done on
satellite, and is often necessary when you can only make connection in
one way (i.e. satellite can ssh into mothership but mothership cannot
initiate connection to satellite because the latter is behind a fire-
wall or does not run sshd).

After running this git push on the satellite machine, you would ssh
into the mothership and run git merge there to complete the emulation
of git pull that were run on mothership to pull changes made on satel-
lite.

git push origin HEAD:master
Push the current branch to the remote ref matching master in the origin
repository. This form is convenient to push the current branch without
thinking about its local name.

git push origin master:refs/heads/experimental
Create the branch experimental in the origin repository by copying the
current master branch. This form is only needed to create a new branch
or tag in the remote repository when the local name and the remote name
are different; otherwise, the ref name on its own will work.

git push origin :experimental
Find a ref that matches experimental in the origin repository (e.g.
refs/heads/experimental), and delete it.

git push origin +dev:master
Update the origin repository's master branch with the dev branch, al-
lowing non-fast-forward updates. This can leave unreferenced commits
dangling in the origin repository. Consider the following situation,
where a fast-forward is not possible:

o---o---o---A---B origin/master
\
X---Y---Z dev

The above command would change the origin repository to

A---B (unnamed branch)
/
o---o---o---X---Y---Z master

Commits A and B would no longer belong to a branch with a symbolic
name, and so would be unreachable. As such, these commits would be re-
moved by a git gc command on the origin repository.

SECURITY
The fetch and push protocols are not designed to prevent one side from
stealing data from the other repository that was not intended to be shared.
If you have private data that you need to protect from a malicious peer,
your best option is to store it in another repository. This applies to both
clients and servers. In particular, namespaces on a server are not effec-
tive for read access control; you should only grant read access to a name-
space to clients that you would trust with read access to the entire repos-
itory.

The known attack vectors are as follows:

1. The victim sends "have" lines advertising the IDs of objects it has
that are not explicitly intended to be shared but can be used to opti-
mize the transfer if the peer also has them. The attacker chooses an
object ID X to steal and sends a ref to X, but isn't required to send
the content of X because the victim already has it. Now the victim be-
lieves that the attacker has X, and it sends the content of X back to
the attacker later. (This attack is most straightforward for a client
to perform on a server, by creating a ref to X in the namespace the
client has access to and then fetching it. The most likely way for a
server to perform it on a client is to "merge" X into a public branch
and hope that the user does additional work on this branch and pushes
it back to the server without noticing the merge.)

2. As in #1, the attacker chooses an object ID X to steal. The victim
sends an object Y that the attacker already has, and the attacker
falsely claims to have X and not Y, so the victim sends Y as a delta
against X. The delta reveals regions of X that are similar to Y to the
attacker.

CONFIGURATION
Everything below this line in this section is selectively included from the
git-config(1) documentation. The content is the same as what's found there:

push.autoSetupRemote
If set to true assume --set-upstream on default push when no upstream
tracking exists for the current branch; this option takes effect with
push.default options simple, upstream, and current. It is useful if by
default you want new branches to be pushed to the default remote (like
the behavior of push.default=current) and you also want the upstream
tracking to be set. Workflows most likely to benefit from this option
are simple central workflows where all branches are expected to have
the same name on the remote.

push.default
Defines the action git push should take if no refspec is given (whether
from the command-line, config, or elsewhere). Different values are
well-suited for specific workflows; for instance, in a purely central
workflow (i.e. the fetch source is equal to the push destination), up-
stream is probably what you want. Possible values are:

nothing
do not push anything (error out) unless a refspec is given. This is
primarily meant for people who want to avoid mistakes by always be-
ing explicit.

current
push the current branch to update a branch with the same name on
the receiving end. Works in both central and non-central workflows.

upstream
push the current branch back to the branch whose changes are usu-
ally integrated into the current branch (which is called @{up-
stream}). This mode only makes sense if you are pushing to the same
repository you would normally pull from (i.e. central workflow).

tracking
this is a deprecated synonym for upstream.

simple
push the current branch with the same name on the remote.

If you are working on a centralized workflow (pushing to the same
repository you pull from, which is typically origin), then you need
to configure an upstream branch with the same name.

This mode is the default since Git 2.0, and is the safest option
suited for beginners.

matching
push all branches having the same name on both ends. This makes the
repository you are pushing to remember the set of branches that
will be pushed out (e.g. if you always push maint and master there
and no other branches, the repository you push to will have these
two branches, and your local maint and master will be pushed
there).

To use this mode effectively, you have to make sure all the
branches you would push out are ready to be pushed out before run-
ning git push, as the whole point of this mode is to allow you to
push all of the branches in one go. If you usually finish work on
only one branch and push out the result, while other branches are
unfinished, this mode is not for you. Also this mode is not suit-
able for pushing into a shared central repository, as other people
may add new branches there, or update the tip of existing branches
outside your control.

This used to be the default, but not since Git 2.0 (simple is the
new default).

push.followTags
If set to true, enable --follow-tags option by default. You may over-
ride this configuration at time of push by specifying --no-follow-tags.

push.gpgSign
May be set to a boolean value, or the string if-asked. A true value
causes all pushes to be GPG signed, as if --signed is passed to git-
push(1). The string if-asked causes pushes to be signed if the server
supports it, as if --signed=if-asked is passed to git push. A false
value may override a value from a lower-priority config file. An ex-
plicit command-line flag always overrides this config option.

push.pushOption
When no --push-option=<option> argument is given from the command line,
git push behaves as if each <option> of this variable is given as
--push-option=<option>.

This is a multi-valued variable, and an empty value can be used in a
higher priority configuration file (e.g. .git/config in a repository)
to clear the values inherited from a lower priority configuration files
(e.g. $HOME/.gitconfig).

Example:

/etc/gitconfig
push.pushoption = a
push.pushoption = b

~/.gitconfig
push.pushoption = c

repo/.git/config
push.pushoption =
push.pushoption = b

This will result in only b (a and c are cleared).

push.recurseSubmodules
May be check, on-demand, only, or no, with the same behavior as that of
push --recurse-submodules. If not set, no is used by default, unless
submodule.recurse is set (in which case a true value means on-demand).

push.useForceIfIncludes
If set to true, it is equivalent to specifying --force-if-includes as
an option to git-push(1) in the command line. Adding --no-force-if-in-
cludes at the time of push overrides this configuration setting.

push.negotiate
If set to true, attempt to reduce the size of the packfile sent by
rounds of negotiation in which the client and the server attempt to
find commits in common. If false, Git will rely solely on the server's
ref advertisement to find commits in common.

push.useBitmaps
If set to false, disable use of bitmaps for git push even if
pack.useBitmaps is true, without preventing other git operations from
using bitmaps. Default is true.

GIT
Part of the git(1) suite

Git 2.53.0 2026-02-01 GIT-PUSH(1)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=git-push&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+15.1-RELEASE+and+Ports>

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