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I found, in the official guide:

git push origin HEAD

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

However, the meaning of the command is not clear to me. Why does it have this effect?

I haven't been able to find an answer (this question seems to treat the problem, but the title is misleading).

Community
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0x5C91
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2 Answers2

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HEAD points to the top of the current branch. git can obtain the branch name from that. So it's the same as:

git push origin CURRENT_BRANCH_NAME

but you don't have to remember/type the current branch name. Also it prevents you from pushing to the wrong remote branch by accident.

If you want to push a different branch than the current one the command will not work.

hek2mgl
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    It might help to mention that `HEAD` is a symbolic ref, and it can be seen with `git symbolic-ref HEAD`. – John Szakmeister Apr 23 '14 at 11:23
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    What is the difference between: `git push origin` and `git push origin HEAD`? – Maciek Oct 25 '19 at 12:28
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    @MaciejD git push origin without specifying a branch name doesn't work. either you add a branch name or you say HEAD, meaning the current branch you're in – Schwarzie2478 Dec 16 '19 at 16:34
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    Actually `git push origin` is a valid command. If the `push.default` Git config setting is set to `nothing` then `git push origin` will "not push anything (error out)" according to `man git-config`. But other `push.default` settings have other behaviors. Search for `push.default` in `man git-config`. Also search for "When the command line does not specify **where** to push" and "When the command line does not specify **what** to push" in the description section at the top of `man git-push` (that's `man git-push`, not `man git-config`). – David Winiecki Mar 18 '20 at 18:41
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If you want to push into the specific remote branch you can run:

git push origin HEAD:<name-of-remote-branch>

This is what I encounter when I was trying to push my repo back to the remote branch.

Sarvar Khalimov
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