Feature Request: Sync with upstream repository

When working on an upstream repository, I will clone that into my own GitHub (origin) then connect that repository to Desktop. I only ever want to work on origin/branch, but want to keep the origin/master in sync with the upstream/master.

The only way I have found (assuming I have added the upstream already) is to, from the CLI, do

git pull upstream master
git push origin master

Being able to do this more easily would really help (I have to look it up every time).

ref #3199 - upstream url added automatically - great.

[shiftkey]

@borpin some extra context on the flow you went through:

You can see here there is a dropdown arrow which is telling me I am 103 commits behind.

This arrow is used to show the ahead/behind details for your current branch, using tracking branch set in configuration (this will likely be on origin).

If I click on the arrow

This icon is not intended to be clickable, but this is an interesting bit of feedback about the UX.

Ah, it says origin remote, I’d expect it to say upstream (I’d thought origin was always the fork).

This is a new action that was added as part of #6445 and is also based on your current tracked branch. Git doesn’t support tracking multiple branches, so this is where our prompt about “Your branch is XYZ commits behind [default branch]” comes in.

I’ve opened #6875 as a proposal to make this flow more intuitive, and I’d love to hear your input there based on your current experiences with working with forks in the app.

There is the Origin in the Repository settings, but no option to include an upstream.

Desktop should be adding an upstream remote for the fork once it’s tracked in the app, if it’s a GitHub repository. I’ve opened #6877 to discuss making this more prominent in the UI.

I’m going to close this out as I think those are the fork-specific issues worth discussing in more detail, but feel free to open fresh issues if there are other things you would like to see improved about how we handle forks in the app.

[borpin]

Just opened a repo that I forked a while ago. GitHub web shows

But I am getting nothing in Desktop that indicates this (not even the arrow in the ‘Current Repository’ dropdown). I saw an issue regarding Desktop asking about adding in the remote upstream when a repository was cloned, but I did not see that as an option.

There is the Origin in the Repository settings, but no option to include an upstream.