Configuring git to use main instead of master

17 June 2020

Tags: git github blacklivesmatter

I don’t need to explain the backstory, and I am not interested in a discussion whether this change makes sense or not, nor am I interested in the technical problems it could cause if someone changes the name: technical issues shouldn’t be a reason to stop us from improving.

Actually, if you are reading this, there are good chances you’re already in the mindset of removing potentially offensive language from your project, thank you!

The fact is, we have better, more descriptive technical names than "master" and "slave" and we don’t have to use terms which refer to dark ages of our history, so let’s get rid of them in tech.

In this blog post, you will learn:

  • how to make git init create your project with a main branch instead of master

  • how to rename your master branch to main

  • how to make the change on GitHub

Be aware that renaming branches may break your existing integrations (typically with CI or Slack notifications) so only do it when you’re ready.

Configuring git init

By default, when you create a new project, git init will create a master branch. There’s no option in git init to change this, but it’s actually quite easy to set it up differently.

First, in your ~/.gitconfig file, add the following:

~/.gitconfig
[init]
    templateDir = ~/.config/git/template/

Then create, if it doesn’t exist, the following directory:

mkdir ~/.config/git/template

next create this file:

~/.config/git/template/HEAD
ref: refs/heads/main

(don’t forget to add a new line at the end of the first line)

Starting from now, calling git init will create a main branch instead of master!

Now let’s deal with existing projects.

Renaming your master branch

For your current projects, you may want to rename the master branch to main. This is also single command in git:

git checkout master
git branch -m main

Then you can push the branch to your remote…​ but be careful, it will create a new branch on the remote:

git push origin main

Configuring GitHub to use main instead of master

Once you’ve pushed your new branch, you need to tell GitHub that this is your new "default branch". To do this, go to Settings → Branches and select your new branch as the default one:

github branch

Last but not least, you need to delete the old branch from GitHub, which can be done by calling this:

git push origin :master

Done!