This post was most recently updated on December 14th, 2021.
2 min read.This is one of those “note to self” -kind of entries. This workflow is probably so natural to a lot of you all, that you won’t need to ever google it – but since I don’t do that much development using git with the full “fork – clone – branch – submit pull request” -process (which is really typical with GitHub – and I guess Open Source in general), I always need to look up the instructions on how to add pull any changes from the original repository to yours.
I even need to do that often enough, that I wanted to document it somewhere where I can find it easily. Like my blog :)
So, here goes:
Synchronizing your local changes with the upstream repository
Table of Contents
While easy in principle, there are a few steps to remember – see below.
Time needed: 10 minutes.
How to synchronize your forked and local repositories with the original one on GitHub?
- Open a command prompt
Open Git Bash or similar command prompt with git executable available.
- Change the current working directory to your local project.
This can be done running the following command:
cd [your_project_directory]
- Change to your desired branch
You’ll probably want to merge to your main or master – so make sure it’s checked out!
You can change it from GitHub Desktop (if you’re using it), or you can run this:git checkout [branch_name]
- Configure the origin as a remote repository
This needs to be done to enable you to fetch the new commits from it. You can verify if it already is by running this:
git remote -v
If it isn’t, then run this:git remote add upstream https://github.com/ORIGINAL_OWNER/ORIGINAL_REPOSITORY.git
- Sync your local repository with the upstream (the original one)
Run the following command in command prompt:
git fetch upstream
- Perform merge
Run this:
git merge upstream/master
If you get a text editor window in your bash, that’s just Vi asking for your commit comment for your merge. Don’t have to enter anything, just write “:wq” and you should be good.
If you’re on Windows, install the latest git version and it’ll actually let you set Visual Studio Code as the default text editor. - Push your local changes to your repository
“Your local changes” = your merge from upstream = all of the new stuff from the original repository on GitHub.
You can perform this step in GitHub Desktop, or by running this in your comsole prompt:git push
And now you should be good!
Footnotes
From the statistics, I’m seeing tons of you flocking on to the site to look for the answer to this particular question. So let me give you the short and sweet:git push
No big surprise there, right? 😁
And now, you should be even better!
References
- https://help.github.com/articles/syncing-a-fork/
- https://help.github.com/articles/configuring-a-remote-for-a-fork/
- Using role claims to target WebSockets - May 24, 2022
- The simplest fixes to “500 (Internal Server Error)” from Azurite - May 17, 2022
- How to solve “Npgsql: 42883: function create_hypertable(…) does not exist”? - May 10, 2022