As you may be aware, Github is tackling the subject of #blacklivesmatter. An impact of this is the change of pushing to a master repo to now a main repo.
In a nutshell, the master terminology conjures the relationship between a master and a slave, and so to be culturally sensitive -- the term "master" is being phased out.
When starting a project on Github, you may notice that the default branch is "main", not "master".
If you create files locally and then commit them to a master branch, you may notice that your branch is different from the origin. If you push to origin/master, you will end up with two branches rather than your changes going to the default branch.
Here's how to fix your workflow. NOTE: Before you make this fix, be sure you have committed all changes to your master branch (including any Pull Requests) otherwise those changes will be deleted / closed.
git log --oneline
You'll see a print out of where your HEAD currently points to. Something like this:
dfa590e (HEAD -> master, origin/master, origin/HEAD) Change text
8c46e9e Add Github button
Notice how the HEAD and origin both point to a "master". We'll want to change that by creating a new branch called main like so:
git checkout -b main
After doing this you should see Switched to a new branch 'main'.
Next, do a git log --oneline. You should see output like:
dfa590e (HEAD -> main, origin/master, origin/HEAD, master) Change text
8c46e9e Add Github button
Notice how HEAD now points to main, origin/master, origin/HEAD and master.
Next, if your project on Github is "defaulting" to master, you'll want to go to the project settings for the repo, by clicking Settings > Branches, and then updating the Default branch from master to main. Doing so will now make main the default page when someone visits your Github repository.
Let's finish up by deleting the master branch locally on our computer:
Note: Be sure you are on the main branch with git branch and check with the command git log --oneline --graph --decorate --all that the origin/master is in a red color, indicating the next push will remove the reference.
Use:
git branch -d :master
The : sign in front of a branch says delete the branch listed remotely.