Remotes and GitHub Flow · Lesson 14 of 15

Fetch, pull and rejected pushes

Synchronize team work, inspect before merging, and handle non-fast-forward rejection correctly.

12 minutes2 games

fetch downloads remote history and updates origin/* without changing your files. pull is roughly fetch followed by merge (or rebase by configuration). Separating them is calmer: fetch, inspect diff and log, then integrate deliberately.

Teammate pushes

fetch updates origin/main

inspect differences

merge/rebase then push

Git

git init -q -b main
echo "base" > app.txt
git add app.txt
git commit -q -m "Base"
git remote add origin https://example.com/team/app.git
git push -q -u origin main
teammate app.txt "remote update" "Teammate update"
git fetch origin
git log --all --format=%s

If a teammate pushed while you built on an older base, the remote rejects your non-fast-forward push. Do not force automatically. Fetch, pull or merge, resolve conflicts, test, then push. The rejection protects someone else's work.

Quick question

Which command downloads updates without changing the working tree?

Exercise

Push main, let a teammate add remote, pull quietly, and print the file.

Expected output: remote

Git

git init -q -b main
echo "base" > app.txt
git add app.txt
git commit -q -m "Base"
git remote add origin https://example.com/team.git
git push -q -u origin main
cat app.txt

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