Remotes and the Concept of origin

What Is a Remote?

A remote is a version of your repository hosted somewhere else — usually GitHub. By convention, the primary remote is named origin. Remotes enable collaboration: you push your commits up and pull your teammates' commits down.

git remote -v                                     # list remotes and their URLs
git remote add origin git@github.com:user/repo.git # add a remote
git remote rename origin upstream                  # rename a remote
git remote remove upstream                         # remove a remote

Remote Tracking Branches

When you fetch from a remote, Git creates remote-tracking branches like origin/main. These are read-only snapshots of what the remote looked like the last time you communicated with it. Your local main and origin/main are separate pointers.