Working with git can be hard, verbose, and repetitive. I’ve been using this small collection of bash/zsh functions for a few years now and I don’t think I could work without them anymore.

• main - quickly jump back to the default/HEAD branch of your repo without needing to know what the name of that branch is.
• rebase - rebase your current branch against the current state of the default/HEAD branch as it is on the remote server.
• rmbranch - delete your current working branch and move to the default/HEAD branch. Great for PR cleanup!

main

The industry seems to be agreeing that main is a much better default than the outdated term master. Unfortunately, there are still some repos that I’ve needed to work with that use other names.

This function can help remove the guessing game if you work with a bunch of repos that are still transitioning and/or use different names for the default/HEAD branch and you want to quickly get there from your current branch:

function main() {
	DEFAULT_BRANCH=`git remote show origin | grep "HEAD branch" | sed 's/.*: //'`
	git checkout $DEFAULT_BRANCH
	git pull
}

Usage:

main

rmbranch

I’m often in a position where the current branch I’m on had its PR was completed, merged, and branch removed from the remote. I dislike keeping old copies of branches around that I don’t need and I want them cleaned up immediately.

This function deletes the current branch and moves to the default tracked branch, avoiding doing the whold dance yourself. Bonus: it does the same thing as the previous main function and figures out which default/HEAD branch to switch to.

function rmbranch() {
	BRANCH=`git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD`
	DEFAULT_BRANCH=`git remote show origin | grep "HEAD branch" | sed 's/.*: //'`
	git checkout $DEFAULT_BRANCH
	git branch -D $BRANCH
	git pull
}

Usage:

rmbranch

rebase

Super helpful for workplaces that prefer flat commits and don’t allow merge commits – or you just find it easier to rebase. Quickly fetches your default branch and rebases on top of the latest changes.

Again, this figures out the default/HEAD branch automatically so you don’t have to think about it.

function rebase() {
	DEFAULT_BRANCH=`git remote show origin | grep "HEAD branch" | sed 's/.*: //'`
	git fetch origin $DEFAULT_BRANCH
	git rebase origin/$DEFAULT_BRANCH
}

Usage:

rebase