Behavior of `git push --force` when no upstream branch exists

Question

What's the behavior of git push --force when no upstream branch exists?

Will I get something like fatal: The current branch branch_name has no upstream branch , as would happen with a normal push, or would the upstream branch be "forcefully" created?

Answer 1

--force does not change the behaviour of git push without an upstream set (when no push.default and push.autoSetupRemote config is set) empirically with git 2.40.0.

$ git checkout -b dev/test
Switched to a new branch 'dev/test'
$ git push
fatal: The current branch dev/test has no upstream branch.
To push the current branch and set the remote as upstream, use

    git push --set-upstream origin dev/test

To have this happen automatically for branches without a tracking
upstream, see 'push.autoSetupRemote' in 'git help config'.

$ git push --force
fatal: The current branch dev/test has no upstream branch.
To push the current branch and set the remote as upstream, use

    git push --set-upstream origin dev/test

To have this happen automatically for branches without a tracking
upstream, see 'push.autoSetupRemote' in 'git help config'.