Change default git branch name to Main instead of Master

[NangiDev]

When running

cargo new project-name --bin

The generated project initiates git with default branch name master.

My suggestion is that when running the new project command the default branch name should be main

I know it's not a universal agreement that git branches using main as default now a days, but it is has been growing. Also GitHub that this project is hosted on has decided on main.

---

Debugging steps:

$ cargo --version
$ git --version
$ git config --show-origin --get init.defaultBranch

[NangiDev]

Could be a duplicate of cargo init and use HEAD instead

Also I found out that using a git-template could fix this for me if we decides to keep it as is

[LordSentox]

I think a reason for keeping master as the main branch and hopefully without getting too political would be that when calling git init the default branch is still master eventhough some websites have changed their behaviour. Could this be more of a git issue than a cargo issue?

[Nemo157]

You need to just configure your git, I have init.defaultBranch = prīmum in my ~/.gitconfig and:

/tmp/tmp.qSrokxe56d > cargo new foo
     Created binary (application) `foo` package
/tmp/tmp.qSrokxe56d > cd foo
/tmp/tmp.qSrokxe56d/foo on prīmum >

[NangiDev]

I think a reason for keeping master as the main branch and hopefully without getting too political would be that when calling git init the default branch is still master eventhough some websites have changed their behaviour. Could this be more of a git issue than a cargo issue?

Yes it makes sense. I guess you could look at changing to main to be a custom config on these websites part. So staying with git standard makes sense to me. Also I found the git-template solution. I think that is a valid solution for people who want main as default.

You need to just configure your git, I have init.defaultBranch = prīmum in my ~/.gitconfig and:

/tmp/tmp.qSrokxe56d > cargo new foo
     Created binary (application) `foo` package
/tmp/tmp.qSrokxe56d > cd foo
/tmp/tmp.qSrokxe56d/foo on prīmum >

This is a good solution for me. Thanks. I'm guessing this is a global gitconfig right? So it would change all my future git inits.

[NangiDev]

Closing issue.
The "workaround" Nemo157 mentioned is a good solution.

[scottshambaugh]

To give a one-liner that accomplishes this, run the following in a terminal:

git config --global init.defaultBranch 'main'

[indianakernick]

I ran git init and it uses main. I ran cargo new and it uses master. Perhaps something changed?

[Nemo157]

I can't reproduce locally on macOS, without configuration both git (2.41.0) and cargo (latest nightly) use master, with configuration both use the configured value.

@indianakernick What do git config --get init.defaultBranch, git --version and cargo --version say?

One thing I notice is that cargo uses libgit2 to initialize the repository, which I presume queries the config and has a hard-coded default of master. If you have a version of git patched to use a different default (which hasn't happened upstream, but maybe some distros patch it?) then they may differ if you don't manually set it (which is why git init when unconfigured emits a warning telling you to set it in the config).

[indianakernick]

I'm also on macOS but I'm using the version of git that's bundled with Xcode.

> git config --get init.defaultBranch
main
> git --version
git version 2.39.2 (Apple Git-143)
> cargo --version
cargo 1.70.0 (ec8a8a0ca 2023-04-25)

[Nemo157]

Maybe the config is set in a different config file that libgit2 doesn't check, try git config --show-origin --get init.defaultBranch to see exactly where the setting is coming from.

[indianakernick]

I get /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/share/git-core/gitconfig. That's probably it then. It doesn't look in this Xcode-specific place. Makes sense. Probably not a bug.