Branches

Create local branch

To create a new branch and switch to it at the same time, you can run

git checkout -b <new-branch>

This is shortcut to

git branch <new-branch>
git checkout <new-branch>

To be able to make commits into GitHub (or whichever Git hosting service you use) you need to first push the current branch and set the remote as upstream:

git push --set-upstream origin <new-branch>

Add local branch from remote branch

If your repository already has a remote branch that you want to work on locally, you can add it to your local repository by running

git checkout <remote-branch>

or on older verions of Git:

git checkout -b <remote-branch> origin/<remote-branch>

Switch between branches

To switch between your branches and your master branch, you can use the

git checkout <new-branch>

and

git checkout master

Merge branches

Before merging branches, make sure you are on the receiving branch (usually master) by running

git checkout <receiving-branch>

After that, you can merge your desired branch <merged-branch> to <receiving-branch> by running

git merge <merged-branch>

Delete branches

Delete local branch

Once you've finished working on a branch and have merged it into the main code base, you're free to delete the branch without losing any history:

git branch -d <new-branch>

However, if the branch hasn't been merged, the above command will output an error message warning you that the branch is not fully merged.

If you really want to delete the branch, you can use the -D flag:

git branch -D <new-branch>

This deletes the branch regardless of its status and without warnings, so use it judiciously.

Delete remote branch

git push origin --delete <remote-branch>