Why is “git branch” silent in new repositories?

Question

When you create a new repository and run git branch, it exits silently. For example:

$ mkdir /tmp/foo; cd /tmp/foo; git init
Initialized empty G         


        

Answer 1

Note that a branch is simply a pointer to a commit.
Since an empty repo (with its empty tree) has no commit, you have no branch.

A first commit will create a branch named 'master', because HEAD references refs/heads/master.
Should you want to create a first commit on a different branch (than master), you would need to change the symbolic ref of HEAD first (as detailed in this thread):

git symbolic-ref HEAD refs/heads/non-master 

And then make your first commit.