Changes made in remote repo are not tracked by Git in local repo

[Wrichik Basu]

TL;DR

How can I set up tracking such that Git can inform me when my local repo is behind the remote?

I have a local repository (let's call it MyRepo) that is linked with Github (origin). The master branch is set to track origin/master using

$ git branch -u origin/master

Now I create another branch in my local repo, add a file in that branch, commit the change and merge the branch with master:

$ git checkout -b side
$ touch some.txt
$ git add .
$ git commit -m "Added some.txt"
$ git checkout master
$ git merge side

If I execute git status on master, I get the following:

$ git status
On branch master
Your branch is ahead of 'origin/master' by 1 commit.
  (use "git push" to publish your local commits)

nothing to commit, working tree clean

This is expected. So I push the commit using

$ git push -u origin master

and I can see my commit on Github.

Now, I go to Github, select the master branch, add a file (some2.txt) and commit the change. I expect Git to tell me that my local repo is behind origin/master by one commit. But this never happens:

$ git status
On branch master
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/master'.

nothing to commit, working tree clean

However, if I execute git pull on the master branch, the changes in Github appear immediately in my local repo.

How can I set up tracking such that Git can inform me when my local repo is behind the remote (i.e. when master is behind origin/master)?

 

[S.G. Janssens]

I'm not sure that you can do that with

git status

You can however get this information about the remote with

git remote show origin

as explained here.
If you want to locally obtain the information about the updates on the remote, but without merging, then you can also try

git fetch origin

and then the local status should contain information about the remote changes.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

You can however get this information about the remote with

git remote show origin

as explained here.

That works, I have to first execute git fetch origin and then git status:

$ git fetch origin
remote: Enumerating objects: 4, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (4/4), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (2/2), done.
remote: Total 3 (delta 1), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0
Unpacking objects: 100% (3/3), 684 bytes | 4.00 KiB/s, done.
From https://github.com/WrichikBasu/MyRepo
   80b606a..c6450ad  master     -> origin/master

$ git status
On branch master
Your branch is behind 'origin/master' by 1 commit, and can be fast-forwarded.
  (use "git pull" to update your local branch)

nothing to commit, working tree clean

If you want to locally obtain the information about the updates on the remote, but without merging, then you can also try

git fetch origin

and then the local status should contain information about the remote changes.

That works too!

$ git remote show origin
* remote origin
  Fetch URL: https://github.com/WrichikBasu/MyRepo.git
  Push  URL: https://github.com/WrichikBasu/MyRepo.git
  HEAD branch: master
  Remote branch:
    master tracked
  Local branches configured for 'git pull':
    master merges with remote master
    side  merges with remote side
  Local ref configured for 'git push':
    master pushes to master (local out of date)

Thanks.

 

[pbuk]

I use the Git Graph plugin in Visual Studio Code which shows an overview in terms of commits. I rarely look at diffs at the code level and when I do I use GitHub.

Oh I've just re-read your question: if all you want is to know how many commits your local repo is behind (and ahead of) its remote origin, there is an icon in the status bar that refreshes periodically to show this.

https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/versioncontrol#_remotes

 

[Wrichik Basu]

I use the Git Graph plugin in Visual Studio Code which shows an overview in terms of commits.

I generally work on Android Studio and Intellij IDEA. I find it easier to look at the log in command line. I tried using Github desktop once, but made some silly mistake and messed up my first (test) repo. Since then, I have been using Git bash only.