Upstream branches are very useful for collaborative purposes.Now if we clone this repository then a remote-tracking branch is created that tracks the remote master branch and another local master branch are created that has the remote master branch as its upstream. Then the remote branch is called the Upstream Branch for the Tracking Branch on our local repository.Ĭonsider a scenario where we have a remote repository with three commits. We also have a Tracking Branch that tracks this Remote-Tracking Branch. Now consider that we have a Remote-Tracking branch that tracks a remote branch.In most cases, the Tracking Branch tracks the Remote-Tracking Branch. A Tracking Branch is a branch that tracks another branch.Whenever we clone a repository a remote-tracking branch is created which helps us to fetch changes from the remote repository. A Remote-Tracking Branch is a branch that tracks changes to a remote repository branch.To understand the upstream branch we first need to learn about Remote-Tracking Branches and Tracking Branches.In most cases, the upstream is a remote repository and all local repositories of the developers who are collaborating on that project are downstream.It's all relative to what the other repository is doing. Both of these terms are relative, which means there is no central upstream or downstream repository.In Git terminology, any repository that you clone from, pull from, or push to is Upstream to your repository and your local repository is Downstream to that repository.

Setting Upstream Branches makes it very easy for us to connect with the remote repositories. Pushing, and pulling between these two repositories is very common. When using Git we will often have a remote repository to which people push commits and we also have our own local copy on which we are working.

Branching is an important feature of Version Control Systems like Git.

Git set upstream current branch