GitHub Default Branch

Rename your default branch on GitHub easily. By default it renames

master

main

--new

--old

If provided with an

--org

--user

--org

--team

--repo

For each repo, this tool will:

• Create a new branch at the same commit SHA as the old one
• Update all open pull requests to point at the new branch
• Update the default branch for the repo
• Delete the old branch
• Update known URL patterns in source files
• Update any branch protections for

  $old

  to

  $new

  . (This does not work with patterns, it has to be an exact match)

Installation

npm install -g github-default-branch

Development

git clone https://github.com/mheap/github-default-branch.git
cd github-default-branch
npm ci

Authentication

Create a personal access token with the

repo

If you don't want your token to be stored in your shell history, you can set

GITHUB_TOKEN

in the environment and that will be read instead

Usage

# Rename master to main
github-default-branch --pat  --repo user/repo

Rename dev to develop
github-default-branch --pat  --repo user/repo --old dev --new develop
Rename all repos owned by an org
github-default-branch --pat  --org my-org-name
Rename all repos owned by a user
github-default-branch --pat  --user my-user
Rename all repos owned by a team
github-default-branch --pat  --org my-org-name --team my-team-slug

Set

DEBUG="ghdb*"

Options

| Flag | Description | Default | | ------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ------- | | --pat | GitHub API Token | N/A | | --old | The name of the branch to rename | master | | --new | The new branch name | main | | --repo | The repo to update (format: user/repo) | N/A | | --user | Update all repos owned by the provided user (example: my-user) | N/A | | --org | Update all repos in the provided org (example: my-org-name) | N/A | | --team | Update all repos in the provided team (example: my-team-name), only usable in combination with org parameter | N/A | | --dry-run | Output log messages only. Do not make any changes | false | | --skip-forks | Skips forked repositories | false | | --confirm | Run without prompting for confirmation | false |

Skipping transforms

You might want to skip any of the available transforms (such as deleting the old branch). You can add

--skip-[transform-name]

--skip-delete-old-branch

Available transforms

| Transform | Description | | ----------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------- | | update-default-branch | Set the default branch of the repo to

$new

target_commitish

$new

$old

Pending transforms:

• Copy branch protections instead of updating if

  --skip-delete-old-branch

  is used (#26)
• Retarget draft releases (#30)

Replacements

Part of this script checks for the existence of files and updates their contents. Replacements are the mechanism for these updates.

How it Works

Each .js file in the

replacements

If there is nothing to replace, then the script moves on to the next replacement.

How to Add a Replacement

Add a file to

replacements

Like this:

module.exports = function ({
  owner, // string - repo owner
  repo, // string - repo name
  old, // string - old branch name
  target, // string - new branch name
  octokit, // Octokit - oktokit instance
  verbose, // boolean - verbose flag
  isDryRun, // boolean - dry run flag
}) {
  // code goes here
  return {
    path: "",
    replacements: [
      {
        from: "",
        to: "",
      },
      {
        from: "",
        to: "",
      },
    ],
  };
};

The file with the path in your repo will have any line matching

from

to