Git add working line from existing remote branch

TL; DR: you probably wantedgit worktree add ../north north

First, a reminder (or information for others raising this question): git worktree add

wants to create a new working tree and at the same time make sure that this new work tree uses a different branch name from any other working tree. This is because, while each added work tree has its own index and HEAD

, the files HEAD

are traversed by shared base branch pointers in the shared repository. Having two different working trees with independent index objects, but the same base branch, leads to some tricky problems for users. Rather than trying to figure out how to deal with these problems - either educating programmers or providing tools to solve the problems - it git worktree

simply prohibits the situation entirely.

Hence, it is quite common to want to create a new branch name when creating a new tree. By definition, the new branch name is automatically different from any existing branch name:

$ git checkout -b newbranch
Switched to a new branch 'newbranch'
$ git checkout -b newbranch
fatal: A branch named 'newbranch' already exists.

      

        
        
        
      

    

This seems natural enough: no one is surprised by this.

You are using git worktree add

in a way that is similar to git checkout -b

, except that validation occurs on the newly added tree. But you already have a branch named north

.

If this existing branch is north

not useful, you can delete it. Now you don't have a local named branch north

and you can create a new one.

If this existing branch north

is helpful, don't delete it! If it is already checked in some existing work tree, go to that tree tree and work on it. If it is not checked on any existing work tree, you can create a new work tree that posted it; you just need to avoid using the flag -b

(and the corresponding branch name):

git worktree add ../north north

      

        
        
        
      

    

Note that when you create a new branch, you don't need to repeat:

git worktree add -b newbranch ../path

      

        
        
        
      

    

will create a new working tree in ../path

and git checkout -b newbranch

populate it with. You only need the branch name if:

• you don't use -b
  
  and
• the path argument does not end with the branch name.

For example, if you want to checkout an existing branch zorg

in a new work tree in the path ../zorg

, you can simply run:

git worktree add ../zorg

      

        
        
        
      

    

Here, since there is -b zorg

no final argument, Git calculates the branch name using the last part ../zorg

, which is simple of course zorg

, so it tries to check out from the existing branch zorg

into the new working tree.