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Yeah, ive had issues with repos on github having master and new ones having main. Github api seems to force the default branch to main (on new repos) making fixing this harder as well.

It's not that big of a deal but sure is a hassle.




I just created a new repo with just a master branch. Where does Github force anything?

They're sure suggesting it - their suggested commands to initialize a new repo will create a main branch. But you can just ignore that suggestion?


Perhaps you missed that the person you are replying to was talking about the GitHub API and not their web interface?

Here’s the API reference: https://docs.github.com/en/rest/reference/repos#create-an-or...

I don’t see any parameter for setting the default to master instead of main. However it does seem like you can change it after it has been created with a subsequent update call.


I'd expect you'd still create an empty repo (same as in the web UI) and then push the branches you want to push. You don't configure a branch name in the web ui as well.

But that's why I'm asking where OP found that and not just saying they're wrong.

€: There's also https://docs.github.com/en/rest/reference/repos#update-a-rep... where you can set the default_branch?


edit: my bad, I expected it to be the case but it turns out I had it in my gitconfig instead.

They are just going along the git default, so yes, a new repo will be on main branch by default.


No, the Git default is still master. GitHub changed their default to main.


Right, I was confused by my .gitconfig.


No, this is still incorrect. It’s not the future default either. Nobody has made the decision to change the default at present.


It's just that, and the "create a first commit/branch/README for me" thing it can do presumably does that with "main" now also.


As @zerocrates mentioned, it's about the github auto commit feature when creating a new repo. This makes bootstrapping using terraform more complicated.


> Github api seems to force the default branch to main (on new repos)

Jesus, really? I didn't pay much attention to the master nonsense because I figured it would be limited to projects who cared more about social performance than building something useful, but it sounds like it's being forced at the platform-level onto every project.

OTOH, the impact is mitigated for new projects


I may have misspoken, you can change the default branch after the fact, my issue was with the "auto-create README" feature




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