How can I check out a GitHub pull request with git

Question

I d like to check out a previously created pull request  created via GitHub web interface   I searched and found different places where a refs pull or refs pull pr  But when I add fetch    refs pull   head refs remotes origin pr   to the git config file and do a git fetch  What I m doing wrong  Should GitHub create automatically the pull xyz stuff  or do I have to configure something

User · Answer

That gist does describe what happend when you do a git fetch:

Obviously, change the github url to match your project's URL. It ends up looking like this:

[remote "origin"]
    fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
    url = [email protected]:joyent/node.git
    fetch = +refs/pull/*/head:refs/remotes/origin/pr/*

Now fetch all the pull requests:

$ git fetch origin
From github.com:joyent/node
 * [new ref]         refs/pull/1000/head -> origin/pr/1000
 * [new ref]         refs/pull/1002/head -> origin/pr/1002
 * [new ref]         refs/pull/1004/head -> origin/pr/1004
 * [new ref]         refs/pull/1009/head -> origin/pr/1009
...

To check out a particular pull request:

$ git checkout pr/999
Branch pr/999 set up to track remote branch pr/999 from origin.
Switched to a new branch 'pr/999'

You have various scripts listed in issues 259 to automate that task.
The git-extras project proposes the command git-pr (implemented in PR 262)

`git-pr`(1) -- Checks out a pull request locally

SYNOPSIS

git-pr <number> [<remote>]
git-pr clean

DESCRIPTION

Creates a local branch based on a GitHub pull request number, and switch to that branch afterwards.

The name of the remote to fetch from. Defaults to origin.

EXAMPLES

This checks out the pull request 226 from origin:

$ git pr 226

remote: Counting objects: 12, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (9/9), done.
remote: Total 12 (delta 3), reused 9 (delta 3)
Unpacking objects: 100% (12/12), done.
From https://github.com/visionmedia/git-extras
  * [new ref] refs/pull/226/head -> pr/226
Switched to branch 'pr/226'

User · Answer

There is an easy way for doing this using git-cli gh pr checkout   lt number gt     lt url gt     lt branch gt    Reference  https   cli github com manual gh pr checkout

User · Answer

If you are using Github com  go to  Pull requests   click on the relevant pull request  and then click on the  command line instructions  link

User · Answer

This will fetch without you having to name a branch   git pull origin pull 939 head   How do I get a specific pull request on my machine

User · Answer

Github recently released a cli utility called github-cli  After installing it  you can checkout a pull request s branch locally by using its id  ref  e g  gh pr checkout 2267 This works with forks as well but if you then need to push back to the fork  you ll need to add the remote repository and use traditional git push  until this ticket gets implemented in gh utility

User · Answer

Referencing Steven Penny s answer  it s best to create a test branch and test the PR  So here s what you would do     Create a test branch to merge the PR into locally  Assuming you re on the master branch    git checkout -b test   Get the PR changes into the test branch   git pull origin pull 939 head test  Now  you can safely test the changes on this local test branch  in this case  named test  and once you re satisfied  can merge it as usual from GitHub

User · Answer

I prefer to fetch and checkout without creating a local branch and to be in HEAD detached state  It allows me quickly to check the pull request without polluting my local machine with unnecessary local branches   git fetch upstream pull ID head  amp  amp  git checkout FETCH HEAD  where ID is a pull request ID and upstream where is original pull request has been created  it could be origin  for example    I hope it helps

User · Answer

I accidentally ended up writing almost the same as provided by git-extras  So if you prefer a single custom command instead of installing a bunch of other extra commands  just place this git-pr file somewhere in your  PATH and then you can just write   git pr 42    or git pr upstream 42    or git pr https   github com peerigon phridge pull 1

User · Answer

I m using hub  a tool from github  https   github com github hub  With hub checking out a pull request locally is kinda easy   hub checkout https   github com owner repo pull 1234 or hub pr checkout 1234

User · Answer

Create a local branch git checkout -b local-branch-name  Pull the remote PR git pull git github com your-repo-ssh git remote-branch-name

User · Answer

For Bitbucket  you need replace the word pull to pull-requests   First  you can confirm the pull request URL style by git ls-remote origin command      git ls-remote origin  grep pull f3f40f2ca9509368c959b0b13729dc0ae2fbf2ae    refs pull-requests 1503 from da4666bd91eabcc6f2c214e0bbd99d543d94767e    refs pull-requests 1503 merge       As you can see  it is refs pull-requests 1503 from instead of refs pull 1503 from  Then you can use the commands of any of the answers

User · Answer

To fetch a remote PR into your local repo  git fetch origin pull  ID head  BRANCHNAME  where  ID is the pull request id and  BRANCHNAME is the name of the new branch that you want to create  Once you have created the branch  then simply git checkout  BRANCHNAME  See the official GitHub documentation for more

User · Answer

You can use git config command to write a new rule to  git config to fetch pull requests from the repository     git config --local --add remote origin fetch   refs pull   head refs remotes origin pr      And then just     git fetch origin Fetching origin remote  Counting objects  4  done  remote  Compressing objects  100   2 2   done  remote  Total 4  delta 2   reused 4  delta 2   pack-reused 0 Unpacking objects  100   4 4   done  From https   github com container-images memcached     new ref          refs pull 2 head - gt  origin pr 2     new ref          refs pull 3 head - gt  origin pr 3

User · Answer

If you re following the  github fork  workflow  where you create a fork and add the remote upstream repo   14 47   git remote -v origin  git github com  lt yourname gt   lt repo name gt  git  fetch  origin  git github com  lt yourname gt   lt repo name gt  git  push  upstream        git github com  lt repo owrer gt   lt repo name gt  git  fetch  upstream        git github com  lt repo owner gt   lt repo name gt  git  push    to pull into your current branch your command would look like   git pull upstream pull  lt pull request number gt  head   to pull into a new branch the code would look like   git fetch upstream pull  lt pull request number gt  head newbranch

User · Answer

The problem with some of options above  is that if someone pushes more commits to the PR after opening the PR  they won t give you the most updated version  For me what worked best is - go to the PR  and press  Commits   scroll to the bottom to see the most recent commit hash  and then simply use git checkout  i e   git checkout  lt commit number gt   in the above example  git checkout 0ba1a50

User · Answer

Suppose your origin and upstream info is like below       git remote -v    origin  git github com  lt yourname gt   lt repo name gt  git  fetch     origin  git github com  lt yourname gt   lt repo name gt  git  push     upstream   git github com  lt repo owner gt   lt repo name gt  git  fetch     upstream   git github com  lt repo owner gt   lt repo name gt  git  push    and your branch name is like      lt repo owner gt   lt BranchName gt    then     git pull origin  lt BranchName gt    shall do the job

User · Answer

Get the remote PR branch into local branch    git fetch origin    remote branch       local branch name     Set the upstream of local branch to remote branch   git branch --set-upstream-to origin PR Branch Name local branch  When you want to push the local changes to PR branch again  git push origin HEAD remote PR Branch name

[git] How can I check out a GitHub pull request with git?

`git-pr`(1) -- Checks out a pull request locally

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

EXAMPLES

Examples related to git

Examples related to github

Examples related to pull-request

Examples related to git-checkout

[git] How can I check out a GitHub pull request with git?

git-pr(1) -- Checks out a pull request locally

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

EXAMPLES

Examples related to git

Examples related to github

Examples related to pull-request

Examples related to git-checkout

`git-pr`(1) -- Checks out a pull request locally