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   git-fetch    ( 1 )

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CONFIGURED REMOTE-TRACKING BRANCHES

You often interact with the same remote repository by regularly
       and repeatedly fetching from it. In order to keep track of the
       progress of such a remote repository, git fetch allows you to
       configure remote.<repository>.fetch configuration variables.

       Typically such a variable may look like this:

           [remote "origin"]
                   fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*

       This configuration is used in two ways:

       •   When git fetch is run without specifying what branches and/or
           tags to fetch on the command line, e.g.  git fetch origin or
           git fetch, remote.<repository>.fetch values are used as the
           refspecs—they specify which refs to fetch and which local
           refs to update. The example above will fetch all branches
           that exist in the origin (i.e. any ref that matches the
           left-hand side of the value, refs/heads/*) and update the
           corresponding remote-tracking branches in the
           refs/remotes/origin/* hierarchy.

       •   When git fetch is run with explicit branches and/or tags to
           fetch on the command line, e.g.  git fetch origin master, the
           <refspec>s given on the command line determine what are to be
           fetched (e.g.  master in the example, which is a short-hand
           for master:, which in turn means "fetch the master branch but
           I do not explicitly say what remote-tracking branch to update
           with it from the command line"), and the example command will
           fetch only the master branch. The remote.<repository>.fetch
           values determine which remote-tracking branch, if any, is
           updated. When used in this way, the remote.<repository>.fetch
           values do not have any effect in deciding what gets fetched
           (i.e. the values are not used as refspecs when the
           command-line lists refspecs); they are only used to decide
           where the refs that are fetched are stored by acting as a
           mapping.

       The latter use of the remote.<repository>.fetch values can be
       overridden by giving the --refmap=<refspec> parameter(s) on the
       command line.