Block a git branch from being pushed

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Here’s how the pre-push hook approach works, with a branch called dontpushthis.

Create this file as .git/hooks/pre-push:

#!/usr/bin/bash
if [[ `grep 'dontpushthis'` ]]; then 
  echo "You really don't want to push this branch. Aborting."
  exit 1
fi

This works because the list of refs being pushed is passed on standard input. So this will also catch git push --all.

Make it executable.

Do this in every local repository.

When you try to push to that branch, you’ll see:

$ git checkout dontpushthis
$ git push
You really don't want to push this branch. Aborting.
error: failed to push some refs to 'https://github.com/stevage/test.git'

Obviously this is as simple as it looks, and only prevents pushing the branch named “dontpushthis”. So it’s useful if you’re trying to avoid directly pushing to an important branch, such as master.

If you’re trying to solve the problem of preventing confidential information leaking, it might not be sufficient. For example, if you created a sub-branch from dontpushthis, that branch would not be detected. You’d need more sophisticated detection – you could look to see whether any of the commits on the “dontpushthis” branch were present on the current branch, for instance.

A safer solution

Looking at the question again, I think a better solution in this case would be:

  1. Have one repo which is public
  2. Clone that to a new working directory which is private
  3. Remove the remote (git remote rm origin) from that working directory.
  4. To merge public changes, just do git pull https://github.com/myproj/mypublicrepo

This way, the private repo working directory never has anywhere it could push to. You essentially have a one-way valve of public information to private, but not back.

More Related Contents:

  1. How do you create a remote Git branch?
  2. How to fetch all Git branches
  3. How can I delete all Git branches which have been merged?
  4. Trimming Git Commits/Squashing Git History
  5. What is a tracking branch?
  6. What are the differences between git branch, fork, fetch, merge, rebase and clone?
  7. Listing and deleting Git commits that are under no branch (dangling?)
  8. How do you stop tracking a remote branch in Git?
  9. Show just the current branch in Git
  10. Rebasing a branch including all its children
  11. Using Git, show all commits that are in one branch, but not the other(s)
  12. How to get the changes on a branch in Git
  13. How do I fetch all Git branches?
  14. Can I make fast forwarding be off by default in git?
  15. Creating a new empty branch for a new project
  16. git merge: Removing files I want to keep!
  17. Renaming branches remotely in Git
  18. Git: Merge to master while automatically choosing to overwrite master files with branch
  19. Git undo local branch delete
  20. Switch Git branch without files checkout
  21. `git fetch` a remote branch
  22. What to do with branch after merge
  23. Renaming a branch in GitHub
  24. Git: Merge a Remote branch locally
  25. Different default remote (tracking branch) for git pull and git push
  26. How to see commits that were merged in to a merge commit?
  27. How do I manage conflicts with git submodules?
  28. How to ‘git pull’ into a branch that is not the current one?
  29. Git: How to list commits on this branch but not from merged branches
  30. Commit a file to a Different Branch Without Checkout

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