Question

Here’s the situation:

I have a public repository for my open-source app on github.com. However, now I’d like to write some specific code that will not be public (I might use it in a commercial version of my application).

I figured I could use the same repository, and I’d create a “private” branch in my git repository that I wouldn’t push.

But, mistakes happen. Is there some way to forbid git from ever pushing a branch to remote servers?

If there’s a better way to handle this situation, I would of course welcome any suggestions.

Answer 1

A slightly hackish solution: Make a dummy branch on GitHub with the same name as your real branch, and make sure it would not be a fast forward merge. That way, the push operation will fail.

Here’s an example.

$ git clone [e-mail]:user/repo.git
$ cd repo
$ git checkout -b secret
$ echo "This is just a dummy to prevent fast-forward merges" > dummy.txt
$ git add .
$ git commit -m "Dummy"
$ git push origin secret

Now that the dummy branch is set up, we can recreate it locally to diverge from the one on GitHub.

$ git checkout master
$ git branch -D secret
$ git checkout -b secret
$ echo "This diverges from the GitHub branch" > new-stuff.txt
$ git add .
$ git commit -m "New stuff"

Now if we accidentally try to push, it will fail with a non-fast forward merge error:

$ git push origin secret
To [e-mail]:user/repo.git
! [rejected]        secret -> secret (non-fast forward)
error: failed to push some refs to ‘[e-mail]:user/repo.git’