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Now you know how to use a remote
branch to update a local branch.

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But what if you can't find a remote
branch on your local repo?

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If we run git branch, we'll see that
only the master branch is listed.

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We know there's an add-letter
branch in the remote repo.

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Why isn't there one here?

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There actually is a remote branch
named origin add letters, but

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it's not visible in
the default git branch command.

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You can get a list of remote branches
by adding the dash a flag to the git

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branch command,
which causes it to list all branches.

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The output shows our one local branch,

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master, as well as all
the remote branches.

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That includes the origin/master remote
branch we were working with before.

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And we can see an origin
add-letters branch here as well.

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To work with a remote
origin/add-letters branch,

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we need to set up a local
tracking branch for it.

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A tracking branch is a local branch with
a direct relationship to a remote branch.

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Tracking branch is just the official
terminology for it, though.

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Many developers just refer to
tracking branches as local branches.

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When we clone the repository, the local
master branch was automatically set

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up as a tracking branch for
the remote origin/master branch.

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That's why we're informed whether
we're up to date with origin/master

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when we run git status with
the master branch checked out.

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We need to set up a local add
letters branch in the same way.

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We do this by creating a new branch and

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specifying a remote
branch it should track.

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There's several ways to do this.

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One is to use git checkout dash b just
like creating any other local branch,

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except you add the remote branch
that the local branch should track.

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So we could run get checkout dash b,

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have it create a local branch
named add-letters, and

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specify origin/add-letters as
the remote branch to track.

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This commit allows you to specify
a tracking branch name that differs from

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the remote branch name.

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But 99% of the time,
you're going to want them to be the same.

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So there are a couple of shortcuts.

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The first is to use
the double-dash track option and

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skip specifying a local branch name.

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That will create a local branch with
the same name as the remote branch.

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But there's an even shorter shortcut, and
this is what developers use most often.

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If you run git checkout add-letters,

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git will look to see if there's
a remote branch named add-letters.

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If there is, git will set the new local
add-letters branch up to track the remote

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add-letters branch.

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You'll see this in the output.

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Branch add-letters set up to track
remote branch add-letters from origin.

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When you create a tracking branch,

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it'll automatically be set to
the same commit as its remote branch.

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If new commits are made to the add-letters
branch in the remote repo,

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they won't automatically be brought over.

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Just like we saw in the previous video,
you'll need to use git fetch to update

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the origin add letters remote
branch with the new commits.

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And then use git merge to merge the
commits into the local add-letters branch.

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We did mention there was an easier way to
get commits from remote repos, though.

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We'll look at the git pull
command in the next video.