What does “This branch is 0 commits ahead and 0 commits behind master” mean on GitHub?

Question

GitHub screenshot:

There's only one branch, master. git status says there's nothing to commit. How is that branch zero commits ahead and behind itself?

I see this on GitHub forks. Is it just a confusing status message?

Answer 1

This is not a bug.

Once you fork a repo, each of your branch is compared to the branch which is common between the fork and the original repo.
That gives you a clear indication about you can or not make a pull request.

In this instance, your branch is master , which is means it is compared with itself, since master is also in the original repo .
Hence the " 0 commit ahead and 0 commit behind " (with itself) message.

If you had done a commit of your own on, as I mention in " couple of tips on pull request ", on a dedicated branch made from master , then your branch would have been a commit ahead of master .
You could then have made a pull request, from the owner of the first repo to consider.

In any case, the purpose of that message is to remind you that the main goal of a fork is to collaborate and contribute back :

• if your dedicated branch is behind, you want to rebase it against origin/branch (which you are supposed to keep in sync with the original repo, in other words, you are not supposed to work directly on master ) in order to make sure your own work is compatible with the latest commits of the first repo,
• if your branch is ahead, you could consider making a pull request and giving back.