Changing default branch of git init

With the planned update for Github to start using main instead of master for the initial default branch, I started moving all my projects on my personal git server. Until the git project itself updates the tools, initializing new projects locally still is a little bit of pain. With a simple shell script we can automate it.

The HEAD reference needs to be updated in the project to point to a new branch. To do this we use

$ git symbolic-ref HEAD refs/heads/<new branch name>

This will change the HEAD pointer to direct to the head of the given branch. On a new repo with no commits, the first commit will default to the HEAD pointer’s branch. The manual process would be:

$ mkdir /tmp/foo; cd $_
$ git init
Initialized empty Git repository in /tmp/foo/.git/
$ git reflog
fatal: your current branch 'master' does not have any commits yet
$ git symbolic-ref HEAD refs/heads/main
$ git reflog
fatal: your current branch 'main' does not have any commits yet
$

If you’re like me you’ll forget this right away. We can create a shell function that will perform the action on a git init command. Add the following to your .bashrc or .zshrc.

function git() {
  command git "$@"
  if [[ $? -eq 0 && "$1" == "init" && "$@" != *"--help"* ]]; then
    echo "Setting HEAD to branch main"
    git symbolic-ref HEAD refs/heads/main
  fi
}

The script calls git with the arguments supplied. If it is successful, is calling git init and isn’t calling --help the HEAD ref is changed to main.

$ mkdir /tmp/bar; cd  $_
$ git init
Initialized empty Git repository in /tmp/bar/.git/
Setting HEAD to branch main
$ git reflog
fatal: your current branch 'main' does not have any commits yet
$