Git Push Branches — Pushing and Managing Remote Branches

In the previous blog, we pushed our first commit to GitHub using SSH.
Now, let’s go a step further — adding new commits, creating branches, pushing them to remote, and learning how to list/manage local and remote branches.

Pushing Additional Commits

I added a new commit locally. At this point:

  • Local main branch → 2 commits
  • Remote origin/main → still 1 commit

To push the new commit:

git push origin main

✅ Equivalent to:

git push origin main:main

Since source branch and destination branch have the same name, you don’t need to write both.

After pushing, GitHub reflects the second commit.

Creating and Pushing a New Branch

Let’s create a branch:

git branch feature1
git switch feature1

Make some changes, commit, and now you have:

  • main → continues from first commits
  • feature1 → new branch with additional commit

Push with a Different Remote Name

If you want this branch to appear with a different name on GitHub (e.g., audiocall):

git push origin feature1:audiocall
  • Left side (feature1) → Local branch name
  • Right side (audiocall) → Remote branch name on GitHub

Now GitHub will have a branch named audiocall, even though your local branch is feature1.

Listing Branches

Git provides several useful options with git branch:

Local Branches

git branch

Shows only your local branches.

All Branches (Local + Remote)

git branch -a

Lists both local and remote branches.

Remote Branches Only

git branch -r

Shows only remote branches.

Branch Tracking Information

git branch -vv

Displays each local branch along with its tracking information (which remote branch it is mapped to).

👉 In our case, no local branch is mapped to a remote branch yet. We’ll see how to set up tracking branches in the next blog.

Summary

  • Use git push origin branch to push commits.
  • Rename remote branch during push with git push origin localbranch:remotebranch.
  • Use git branch, -a, -r, and -vv to explore local and remote branches.
  • Tracking branches are not set by default — we’ll cover them next.

Coming Up Next

In the next blog, we’ll see how to set up tracking branches so that local and remote branches stay in sync without writing long push commands every time.

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