Remote Branches

Branching in a distributed environment means you have both Local Branches and Remote Tracking Branches.

1. Inspecting Remote Branches

You can see the branches that exist on your remotes without checking them out:

# List all remote branches
git branch -r
 
# List all branches (Local + Remote)
git branch -a
 
# See verbose info (Which local branch tracks which remote)
git branch -vv

2. Tracking a Remote Branch

When you want to work on a branch that someone else pushed to GitHub:

# Create a local branch that 'tracks' the remote one
git checkout --track origin/feature-api
 
# Shorthand for simple cases
git checkout feature-api

Once tracking is set up, git pull and git push will automatically know which remote branch to communicate with.

3. Pruning Stale Branches

A common headache in long-lived projects is "branch clutter"—remotes having deleted branches that still show up in your local list.

# Remove local references to remote branches that no longer exist
git fetch --prune

4. Deleting Remote Branches

Finished with a feature? Don't just delete it locally; remove it from the cloud too:

# Delete the 'feature-old' branch on the remote 'origin'
git push origin --delete feature-old

[!IMPORTANT] Remote Tracking Branches are Read-Only You cannot checkout directly to a remote branch like origin/main. You must create a local branch that follows it. Think of the remote branch as a "bookmark" that updates whenever you fetch.