How do I push a new local branch to a remote Git repository and track it too?

Question

I want to be able to do the following:

1. Create a local branch based on some other (remote or local) branch (via git branch or git checkout

Answer 1

For greatest flexibility, you could use a custom Git command. For example, create the following Python script somewhere in your $PATH under the name git-publish and make it executable:

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import argparse
import subprocess
import sys


def publish(args):
    return subprocess.run(['git', 'push', '--set-upstream', args.remote, args.branch]).returncode


def parse_args():
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description='Push and set upstream for a branch')
    parser.add_argument('-r', '--remote', default='origin',
                        help="The remote name (default is 'origin')")
    parser.add_argument('-b', '--branch', help='The branch name (default is whatever HEAD is pointing to)',
                        default='HEAD')
    return parser.parse_args()


def main():
    args = parse_args()
    return publish(args)


if __name__ == '__main__':
    sys.exit(main())

Then git publish -h will show you usage information:

usage: git-publish [-h] [-r REMOTE] [-b BRANCH]

Push and set upstream for a branch

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -r REMOTE, --remote REMOTE
                        The remote name (default is 'origin')
  -b BRANCH, --branch BRANCH
                        The branch name (default is whatever HEAD is pointing to)