Git Basics: What origin and the -u Flag Really Mean

If you have worked with Git, you’ve probably run into commands like

git push origin main
git push -u origin main

But what exactly is… origin? And what does the -u flag do?

What is origin?

Whenever you clone a repository, Git will automatically create an alias to that repo. So it bookmarks the origin of that repo, and it happens to be that the default name of this bookmark is called origin. However it could be called anything you want.

For example. If you clone a repository:

git clone https://github.com/user/project.git

Git will set up a bookmark called origin which points to https://github.com/user/project.git

You can verify this yourself by running

git remote --verbose

What does -u mean?

The -u flag is short for --set-upstream. It’s most useful when you’re pushing a branch for the first time.

For example:

git push -u origin main

This command does two things: 1. Pushes your local main branch to origin/main aka it pushes your local branch to the link behind the bookmark called origin. And as we saw before, the link of the bookmark points to your GitHub repository. 2. It links to your local main branch with the remote branch origin/main

After you’ve set this up, once you can just run. bash git pull git push

Without having to repeat. origin main Every time.

Why does this matter?

Without -u You would always need to type out git push origin your-branch-name.