How to tell which local branch is tracking which remote branch in Git?

Using the example of my copy of Puppet checked out from the upstream Git repository on Github.com...

$ git remote show origin
* remote origin
  Fetch URL: git://github.com/reductivelabs/puppet.git
  Push  URL: git://github.com/reductivelabs/puppet.git
  HEAD branch: master
  Remote branches:
    0.24.x                 tracked
    0.25.x                 tracked
    2.6.x                  tracked
    master                 tracked
    next                   tracked
    primordial-ooze        tracked
    reins-on-a-horse       tracked
    testing                tracked
    testing-17-march       tracked
    testing-18-march       tracked
    testing-2-april        tracked
    testing-2-april-midday tracked
    testing-20-march       tracked
    testing-21-march       tracked
    testing-24-march       tracked
    testing-26-march       tracked
    testing-29-march       tracked
    testing-31-march       tracked
    testing-5-april        tracked
    testing-9-april        tracked
    testing4268            tracked
  Local branch configured for 'git pull':
    master merges with remote master
  Local ref configured for 'git push':
    master pushes to master (up to date)

Then if I were to execute the following:

$ git checkout -b local_2.6 -t origin/2.6.x 
Branch local_2.6 set up to track remote branch 2.6.x from origin.
Switched to a new branch 'local_2.6'

And finally re-run the git remote show origin command again I will then see the following down near the bottom:

  Local branches configured for 'git pull':
    local_2.6 merges with remote 2.6.x
    master    merges with remote master

For all branches:

git branch -avv

For local branches only:

git branch -lvv

For remote branches only:

git branch -rvv

shows you all branches as well as the name of the upstream branch.

Jeremy Bouse illustrates how git remote show displays tracking information. That should be sufficient if you only want the information for human consumption.

If you plan on using the information in an automated context (e.g. a script) you should use the lower-level (“plumbing”) git for-each-ref instead.

% git remote show origin
* remote origin
⋮
  Local branches configured for 'git pull':
    master merges with remote master
    pu     merges with remote pu
⋮
% git for-each-ref --format='%(refname:short) <- %(upstream:short)' refs/heads
master <- origin/master
pu <- origin/pu

The git for-each-ref learned the %(upstream) token in Git 1.6.3. With earlier versions of Git you will have to extract the tracking information with git config branch.<name>.remote and git config branch.<name>.merge (probably using git for-each-ref to build the commands for each local branch name).

For a particular branch, you can use git rev-parse with the @{u} or @{upstream} suffix on the branch name, e.g.:

$  git rev-parse --symbolic-full-name master@{u}
refs/remotes/github-mhl/master

... or for the abbreviated form, add --abbrev-ref

$ git rev-parse --symbolic-full-name --abbrev-ref master@{u}
github-mhl/master

You can generally use the branch@{upstream} syntax wherever a commit is expected.

I use the following shell script (named git-tracks) to show the remote branch that is tracked by the current branch:

#!/bin/sh -e
branch=$(git symbolic-ref HEAD)
branch=${branch##refs/heads/}
remote=$(git config "branch.${branch}.remote")
remoteBranch=$(git config "branch.${branch}.merge")
remoteBranch=${remoteBranch##refs/heads/}

echo "${remote:?}/${remoteBranch:?}"

This could also use the mentioned git for-each-ref, but I found the direct access somewhat simpler than filtering the output for the current branch.

.git/config file also will provide the tracking branch info as

[remote "Hub"]
    url = ssh://xxxx/tmp/Hub
    fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/Hub/*
[branch "develop"]
    remote = Hub
    merge = refs/heads/develop
[branch "Dev1"]
    remote = Test
    merge = refs/heads/Dev1
[remote "Test"]
    url = ssh://xxxx/tmp/gittesting/Dev1GIT
    fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/Test/*

git branch -vv

shows exactly what you ask for. It shows the local branches together with the corresponding remote branch they are tracking.

Add these runes to the [alias] section of your .gitconfig file:

show-tracking = !sh -c 'git ls-remote . |grep `git log -1 --grep="git-svn-id" --format=%H`|perl -pe "s/[[:alnum:]]+[[:space:]]//"'

I needed to find the corresponding remote branch (if any) for each local branch within a loop that was acting on a list of the local branches. I ended up using the following:

git for-each-ref --format='%(refname:short):%(upstream:short)' refs/heads | grep "^LocalBranchName:.*/" | sed "s/^LocalBranchName://"

This will output nothing (an empty string) for local branches that don't have a corresponding remote branch ("someremote/somebranch").

Try git branch with options:

 -r
List or delete (if used with -d) the remote-tracking branches. 

-a
List both remote-tracking branches and local branches. 

Otherwise, examine your .git/config.