Create an empty branch on GitHub
This article outlines the process of creating an empty git branch on the command line. We will then push the empty branch to a GitHub repository.
We know that we cannot push empty branches to remote repositories. However, there is a workaround.
Create an empty branch on GitHub
The example below shows a local repository with a master branch. We want to create an empty release branch in our repository.
Of course, we can't create an empty branch the normal way. If we did that, we would create a release branch with commit history borrowed from our master branch.
We will create an empty release branch using the command below.
Order:
$ git switch --orphan release
This should create an empty branch with no commits or files. Let's run git logthe command to confirm our case.
We now have an empty release branch. Since we can't push an empty branch to remote, we have to create an empty commit in our release branch.
Order:
$ git commit --allow-empty -m "Initial commit on orphan branch"
This will create a commit without any files. We can now push the branch to the remote as shown below.
Order:
$ git push -u origin release
This should push our empty branch to the remote repository on GitHub. Let's verify that this is the case.
There you have it. An empty release branch on GitHub.
Summarize
In short, you can create an empty branch using the git commit command with the --orphan flag . You can also use the git commit command, but you have to clean up the index before committing.git switchgit checkout
If that fails, you'll create a commit with the files present in the index.
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