Remotes

What you will be able to do

• Add a remote with git remote add
• Explain fetch vs pull vs push
• List remotes with -v

Why this matters for data work

The remote is the shared copy (usually GitHub). push publishes; pull updates you. Laptops are not backups by themselves.

Concepts

• origin — conventional remote name
• git remote add origin <url>
• git push -u origin main — publish and set upstream
• git fetch — download refs; git pull — fetch + merge (or rebase)

Practice on your machine

Simulate a remote with a bare repo:

cd ~/dcubes/git-lab
git init --bare origin-retail.git
cd ~/dcubes/git-lab/init-demo
git remote add origin ~/dcubes/git-lab/origin-retail.git
git remote -v
git push -u origin main
git status

What you should see

• origin pointing at the bare path.
• Push succeeds; branch tracks origin/main.

Common mistakes

• Pushing without remote — add origin first.
• Two different origin URLs across clones — remote -v to verify.

Next

GitHub basics