branch

branch.autoSetupMerge
Tells git branch, git switch and git checkout to set up new branches so that linkgit:git-pull[1] will appropriately merge from the starting point branch. Note that even if this option is not set, this behavior can be chosen per-branch using the --track and --no-track options. This option defaults to true. The valid settings are: false;; no automatic setup is done true;; automatic setup is done when the starting point is a remote-tracking branch always;; automatic setup is done when the starting point is either a local branch or remote-tracking branch inherit;; if the starting point has a tracking configuration, it is copied to the new branch simple;; automatic setup is done only when the starting point is a remote-tracking branch and the new branch has the same name as the remote branch.

branch.autoSetupRebase
When a new branch is created with git branch, git switch or git checkout that tracks another branch, this variable tells Git to set up pull to rebase instead of merge (see branch.<name>.rebase). The valid settings are: never;; rebase is never automatically set to true. local;; rebase is set to true for tracked branches of other local branches. remote;; rebase is set to true for tracked branches of remote-tracking branches. always;; rebase will be set to true for all tracking branches.

See branch.autoSetupMerge for details on how to set up a branch to track another branch. This option defaults to never.

branch.sort
This variable controls the sort ordering of branches when displayed by linkgit:git-branch[1]. Without the --sort=<value> option provided, the value of this variable will be used as the default. See linkgit:git-for-each-ref[1] field names for valid values.

branch.<name>.remote
When on branch <name>, it tells git fetch and git push which remote to fetch from or push to. The remote to push to may be overridden with remote.pushDefault (for all branches). The remote to push to, for the current branch, may be further overridden by branch.<name>.pushRemote. If no remote is configured, or if you are not on any branch and there is more than one remote defined in the repository, it defaults to origin for fetching and remote.pushDefault for pushing. Additionally, . (a period) is the current local repository (a dot-repository), see branch.<name>.merge’s final note below.

branch.<name>.pushRemote
When on branch <name>, it overrides branch.<name>.remote for pushing. It also overrides remote.pushDefault for pushing from branch <name>. When you pull from one place (e.g. your upstream) and push to another place (e.g. your own publishing repository), you would want to set remote.pushDefault to specify the remote to push to for all branches, and use this option to override it for a specific branch. The value may be the name of a configured remote or a repository URL.

branch.<name>.merge
Defines, together with branch.<name>.remote, the upstream branch for the given branch. It tells git fetch/git pull/git rebase which branch to merge and can also affect git push (see push.default). When in branch <name>, it tells git fetch the default refspec to be marked for merging in FETCH_HEAD. The value is handled like the remote part of a refspec, and must match a ref which is fetched from the remote given by branch.<name>.remote. The merge information is used by git pull (which first calls git fetch) to lookup the default branch for merging. Without this option, git pull defaults to merge the first refspec fetched. Specify multiple values to get an octopus merge. If you wish to setup git pull so that it merges into <name> from another branch in the local repository, you can point branch.<name>.merge to the desired branch, and use the relative path setting . (a period) for branch.<name>.remote.

branch.<name>.mergeOptions
Sets default options for merging into branch <name>. The syntax and supported options are the same as those of linkgit:git-merge[1], but option values containing whitespace characters are currently not supported.

branch.<name>.rebase
When true, rebase the branch <name> on top of the fetched branch, instead of merging the default branch from the default remote when git pull is run. See pull.rebase for doing this in a non branch-specific manner.

When merges (or just m), pass the --rebase-merges option to git rebase so that the local merge commits are included in the rebase (see linkgit:git-rebase[1] for details).

When the value is interactive (or just i), the rebase is run in interactive mode.

NOTE: this is a possibly dangerous operation; do not use it unless you understand the implications (see linkgit:git-rebase[1] for details).

branch.<name>.description
Branch description, can be edited with git branch --edit-description. Branch description is automatically added to the format-patch cover letter or request-pull summary.

branch.<name>.deleteMerged
If set to false, branch <name> is exempt from git branch --delete-merged. Useful for a topic branch you intend to develop further after an initial round has been merged upstream. Defaults to true. Explicit deletion via git branch -d is unaffected.