I receive the following error:
fatal: https://github.com/username/repository-name.git/info/refs not found: did you run git update-server-info on the server?
fatal: https://github.com/username/repository-name.git/info/refs not found: did you run git update-server-info on the server?
In GitHub context, this message should be understood as "The repository doesn't exist". You're supposed to push toward an already existing bare repository. A bare repository is a repository without a working directory, usually found server-side.
If I create my repository first on github, then I can push branches no problem. Is this procedure routine?
Yes. You're supposed to first create your repository on GitHub. See the help topic about this
indeed, as stated by the documentation "To put your project up on GitHub, you'll need to have a GitHub repository for it to live in."