GitHub Default Branch

Rename your default branch on GitHub easily. By default it renames master to main, but is configurable using the --new and --old flags.

If provided with an --org argument, it will run on all repositories within that organisation. Alternatively, you can provide a --repo argument to edit a single repo.

For each repo, this tool will:

• Create a new branch at the same commit SHA as the old one
• Update all open pull requests to point at the new branch
• Update the default branch for the repo
• Delete the old branch

Installation

npm install -g github-default-branch

Authentication

Create a personal access token with the repo scope. This is the value for <token> in the examples.

If you don't want your token to be stored in your shell history, you can set GITHUB_TOKEN in the environment and that will be read instead

Usage

# Rename master to main
github-default-branch --pat <token> --repo user/repo

# Rename dev to develop
github-default-branch --pat <token> --repo user/repo --old dev --new develop

# Rename all repos owned by an org
github-default-branch --pat <token> --org my-org-name

# Rename all repos owned by a user
github-default-branch --pat <token> --user my-user

Run with the --verbose flag to see debug information

Options

Flag	Description	Default
--pat	GitHub API Token	N/A
--repo	The repo to update (format: user/repo)	N/A
--user	Update all repos owned by the provided user (example: my-user)	N/A
--org	Update all repos in the provided org (example: my-org-name)	N/A
--keep-old	Keep the old branch rather than deleting it	false
--old	The name of the branch to rename	master
--new	The new branch name	main