# Re: \[PATCH 0/9\] Allow overriding the default name of the default branch

- From: Johannes Schindelin \<hidden\>
- Date: 2020-06-23 20:28:29 
- List: git
- Page: https://ratatoskr.run/git/2020/06/7850632
- Thread: https://ratatoskr.run/git/2020/06/7849072/t.md

```text
Hi Peff & Ævar,

On Tue, 16 Jun 2020, Jeff King wrote:

> On Tue, Jun 16, 2020 at 10:09:32AM -0400, Jeff King wrote:
>
> > I think with that, we could ditch core.mainBranch entirely, with no
> > notion at all of "this branch is special in this repo". We use HEAD
> > where appropriate, and otherwise avoid any specialness.
>
> One obvious exception is that third-party tools may want to know the
> "special" branch for some reason. But I'm inclined to say that they
> should (in this order):
>
>   - consider whether they really need a special branch at all, or if the
>     mechanism can be made more generic
>
>   - consider whether HEAD is the best value for a special branch (e.g.,
>     GitHub pull requests default to targeting HEAD)

Indeed, this is applicable in many circumstances. For example, instead of
https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/README.md it is just as easy (and
more robust) to write https://github.com/git/git/blob/HEAD/README.md.

The same goes for `git ls-remote origin HEAD` and as a consequence, `git
fetch origin HEAD`: it fetches the default branch of the remote
repository.

And with that, I could imagine that this is not actually necessary:

>   - rely on per-tool config for what's special (because it really may
>     vary between tools, and that's more flexible anyway)
>
> But I'm open to hearing about cases where some tool really wants to know
> "what did the user consider the special branch at the time of creation".

I cannot think of any use cases, apart from essentially creating a new
repository, where a tool or a user would want to know of such a
preference.

Ciao,
Dscho
```