Question

I would like to have the following setup to work with git: for a given project I would like to have my “origin” repository in a directory of my desktop computer at work ($desktop). Then I would like to be able to access, pull and push from this repository from home or anywhere else ($laptop).

For what I have seen in other questions the process would normally involve creating a bare git repository in my desktop using

$desktop > git init -bare

However my understanding is that this would produce a repository without a working directory. I don’t want this. I want my repository to be project specific, to be located in a given directory in both my desktop and laptop and to keep track only of stuff that I keep in a given directory tree. This is apparently problematic with git and that one should “never” push into a normal repository.

Is there a way of sorting this out?

Answer 1

One possibility is to simply pull from your normal repository on your desktop, but rather than pushing directly to the checked-out branch there, push to some other branch that is only for receiving updates on your laptop, and then merge them separately.

That is:

laptop$ git clone desktop:path/to/project
laptop$ cd project
[... make changes...]
laptop$ git push -f desktop:path/to/project master:from-laptop

desktop$ cd path/to/project
desktop$ git merge from-laptop

You can configure branch.master.push master:from-laptop in your laptop repository so that git push will push according to that spec by default.