[git] Why do I need to do `--set-upstream` all the time?

You can set upstream simpler in two ways. First when you create the branch:

git branch -u origin/my-branch

or after you have created a branch, you can use this command.

git push -u origin my-branch

You can also branch, check out and set upstream in a single command:

git checkout -b my-branch -t origin/my-branch

My personally preference is to do this in a two-step command:

git checkout -b my-branch
git push -u origin my-branch