Hacktoberfest 2026: the issues maintainers tagged for October, open and beginner-friendly. Browse Hacktoberfest issues

Documenting pushdefault config option

Open
#257 8 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Assessment

Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Newbie friendliness
35/100
Issue type
Documentation
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Stale
Tech stack
git
Domain
documentation

Research direction

Review the linked devguide submitting and pushing changes sections, along with the .git/config pushdefault example. Compare the three documented workflows and determine which method the guide should recommend, then update the relevant documentation to make that choice and its setup clear.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

topic-git type-feature

There seem to be 3 variations of the git push command:

  1. Use git push origin branchname and always specify the remote and the branch
  2. Use git push -u origin branchname on the first push to set origin as the default and then just use git push
  3. Set the pushdefault to origin in .git/config and just use git push

The first method is the one suggested in the devguide
(e.g. in the submitting section); the second is also documented in the pushing changes section; the third is apparently somewhat recent and not yet documented.

The pushdefault is configured by adding to .git/config:

[remote]
    pushdefault = origin

Where origin refers to the user's fork of cpython. AFAICT almost all the pushes should go to origin.

Each method has pros and cons:

First method:

  • pros: explicit is better than implicit
  • cons: longer to type, harder to remember, could get the arg names/order wrong

Second method:

  • pros: still explicit but shorter to type for the following pushes
  • cons: same as above but only applies to the first push on each branch

Third method:

  • pros: easier to remember, shorter to type, works like hg push
  • cons: less explicit

The question is: which one should we adopt as the recommended method?

Dominant language
Python
Stars
2.1k
Forks
1k
Avg merge
2d 12h
Merged PRs (30d)
12

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

More from python/devguide

All issues in python/devguide

Similar issues

More Python issues

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.