Git fu: Updating your GitHub fork

GitHub with their web interface makes it really easy to fork a project, but it leaves you alone when it comes to updating your fork with the changes in the original repository. Its actually really easy with a few steps:

git remote add original git://url-to-original-repo

This adds another remote repository. You can use git remote -v to see your existing remotes. There should be “origin” already, pointing to your GitHub fork. You can use whatever name you like for the new remote repository, above I’ve used “original”.

git fetch original

This loads all commits, including branches and tags, from the specified remote repository, using the alias defined above.

git merge original/master

This merges all changes from the original master branch in your current branch, eg. your local master branch.

git push

By default, push pushes everything to your “origin” repository. Which brings your repo up-to-date. That’s it!

-Jörn