# Git: How to fetch a branch from the upstream to the local repo in 5 steps

Hello Fellow CodeNewbies 👋,

I am collaborating with a friend to create a project in React.
<br>
I created a repo for the project, and my teammate forked this repo.

## Background

Recently, I created a branch to make some changes. Then I pushed this branch to the remote repo and created a pull request.

I asked my teammate to fetch this branch and test things out locally before merging it into the `main` branch.
<br>
After making sure that we didn't have anything to fetch and merge from the remote repo, and after several attempts, we still couldn't fetch the branch from the remote repo.
<br>
We mostly got the error of `fatal: couldn't find remote ref <branch-name>`.

Then we tried to step back and figure things out.
<br>
From my teammate's side, my repo is the `upstream` repo. He then forked this repo, which automatically becomes his `origin` repo.
<br>
For him to fetch a branch — that hasn't been merged to `main` — from the `upstream` repo, his `origin` repo should have access to the `upstream`.
<br>
So, we need to set the `origin` repo to point to the `upstream` repo.

### 📝 Important Side Notes
<br>
My teammate and I started this project with one of us creating a repo and the other forking the repo.
<br> 
But for collaborating, we could do it differently, which I will cover in another blog post.

We found out later that what we're doing is an **open-source** workflow, where we maintain and contribute to a repo. In this case, I am the maintainer, and my teammate is the contributor.
<br>
However, we learned a lot from this *accident*.
<br>
So, I hope you can gain something too from our journey! 😄


## Fetch a branch from the `upstream` repo

1. Check our current configured remote repo for our fork.
```bash
git remote -v
``` 
If we haven't configured a remote that points to the `upstream` repo, we will get:
```bash
origin <fork-repo-url> (fetch)
origin <fork-repo-url> (push)
``` 

2. Add a new remote `upstream` repo that will be synced with the `origin` repo.
```bash
git remote add upstream <original-repo-url>
``` 
  `original-repo-url` is the HTTPS URL of the repo that we fork.
<br>
  We can copy this link by going to the repo on GitHub, clicking the green button with "Code" written on it, and copying the HTTPS link.

  ![code-btn-github.jpg](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1644864269894/jbfYFIg1Ye.jpeg)

3. Check if the new `upstream` has now been added.
```bash
git remote -v
``` 
Now we should get:
```bash
origin <fork-repo-url> (fetch)
origin <fork-repo-url> (push)
upstream <original-repo-url> (fetch)
upstream <original-repo-url> (push)
``` 

4. Fetch data from the `upstream`.
```bash
git fetch upstream
```
You will see in the command line that we have fetched the branches on the `upstream` repo, including the target branch.

5. Navigate to the branch.
```bash
git checkout branch-name
```
Running this command will automatically create a branch with the same name in our local repo.

Now you have the branch on your local repo, and you can test it out locally! 😄

---

Thank you for reading!
<br>
Last but not least, you can find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/AdiatiAyu). Let's connect! 😊