What is the correct git config for working with GitHub pull requests?

Question

I\'m aware of How can I check out a GitHub pull request?

While adding fetch = +refs/pull/*/head:refs/remotes/origin/pr/* to .git/config does al

Answer 1

One correct way is with hub! :)

$ brew install hub
$ hub checkout https://github.com/github/hub/pull/123

...

$ hub pull
Already up-to-date.

It has extra utilities for working with Github pull requests, such as

hub pull-request

Answer 2

From the fetch specs is not possible to find unambiguously find that remote reference refs/remotes/origin/pr/123 tracks origin:refs/pull/123/head because origin:refs/heads/pr/123 is also possible. To help it, you could use different remote name for example:

[remote "origin-pr"]
  url = <same as for origin>
  fetch = +refs/pull/*/head:refs/remotes/origin-pr/pr/*

Then git checkout with explicit branch name (which should be available in GUIs) would be able to create correct tracking reference:

$ git checkout -b pr/123 origin-pr/pr/123

[branch "pr/123"]
 remote = origin-pr
 merge = refs/pull/123/head

Though, looks like it is not possible to make simple git checkout br/123 work:

$ git checkout pr/123                         
error: pathspec 'pr/123' did not match any file(s) known to git.

Answer 3

You've only fetched branches, not pull requests. Add this to your config:

fetch = +refs/pull/*/head:refs/pulls/origin/pr/*

After that you can checkout a branch that points to a PR remote ref:

git checkout -b "pr-123" pulls/origin/pr/123

Generally, you can check out a ref if you've fetched it from the remote, so look through the git fetch command output and find the PR's ref name. That's what you should put in the checkout command. You should see something like:

[new ref] refs/pull/123/head -> refs/pulls/origin/pr/123

Note that you can substitute the pulls part for any custom prefix. You can now create a branch and point it to pulls/origin/pr/123, which is equivalent to refs/pulls/origin/pr/123 (see git refspec doc).

Answer 4

I think I found a solution, and it's unbelievably simple: Order of the lines with fetch = +refs... matters!

I changed:

[remote "origin"]
    url = https://github.com/the/repo.git
    fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
    fetch = +refs/pull/*/head:refs/remotes/origin/pr/*

to:

[remote "origin"]
    url = https://github.com/the/repo.git
    fetch = +refs/pull/*/head:refs/remotes/origin/pr/*
    fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*

(last two lines swapped)

Now everything works (fetch, checkout, pull).

I'm still waiting to see some (un)expected problems with this configuration, but so far so good...