How to update a forked repository to match with the origin repository on Github

How to update a forked repository to match with the origin repository on Github

Photo by Yancy Min on Unsplash

When you want to contribute to open source, one of the most important things is understand, forking and branching.

Once you have updated some code and made a pull request, you might not do anything with your forks for a lot of time. So the next time you do something, you will have to update it. But how?

Add an upstream remote

We'll add a remote to our repository called upstream with the follow command:

git remote add upstream https://github.com/OriginalRepo/OriginalProject.git

Make sure to use the link of the origin repository

Now you canverify by running

git remote -v

Fetch branches and commits from upstream

Run the following command in order to fetch all the updated banches and commits from upstream

git fetch upstream

Checkout your fork’s local master

git checkout master

Merge changes from upstream/master into it

git merge upstream/master

Push changes to update your fork master'

git push origin master

Note that you might have a different base branch that master.

That's it.. Have fun!