Fetch all GitHub pull requests to local tracking branches

pr.md

NOTE

You may not need local branches for all pull requests in a repo.

To fetch only the ref of a single pull request that you need, use this:

git fetch origin pull/7324/head:pr-7324
git checkout pr-7324
# ...
git branch -D pr-7324

Or, another option is this: Fetch and delete refs to GitHub pull request branches

If you do for some reason need all pull request branches locally, continue on.

---

Locate the section for your github remote in the .git/config file. It looks like this:

[remote "origin"]
	fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
	url = [email protected]:joyent/node.git

Now add the line fetch = +refs/pull/*/head:refs/remotes/origin/pr/* to this section. Obviously, change the github url to match your project's URL. It ends up looking like this:

[remote "origin"]
	fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
	url = [email protected]:joyent/node.git
	fetch = +refs/pull/*/head:refs/remotes/origin/pr/*

Now fetch all the pull requests:

$ git fetch origin
From github.com:joyent/node
 * [new ref]         refs/pull/1000/head -> origin/pr/1000
 * [new ref]         refs/pull/1002/head -> origin/pr/1002
 * [new ref]         refs/pull/1004/head -> origin/pr/1004
 * [new ref]         refs/pull/1009/head -> origin/pr/1009
...

To check out a particular pull request:

$ git checkout pr/999
Branch pr/999 set up to track remote branch pr/999 from origin.
Switched to a new branch 'pr/999'

Usually I merge on GitHub because it has a few benefits:

• better communication (shows up in the interface, along with any approvals or request for changes)
• last time I checked, merging the PR branches on the command line doesn't cause the PR on GitHub to be updated

But if you want to go ahead anyway, I guess this would work (when you're currently on the master branch):

git merge pr/999

I have already done them manually with a few macros. I'll remember this for later.
Thanks though!