Default behavior of "git push" without a branch specified

You can control the default behavior by setting push.default in your git config. From the git-config(1) documentation:

push.default

Defines the action git push should take if no refspec is given on the command line, no refspec is configured in the remote, and no refspec is implied by any of the options given on the command line. Possible values are:

• nothing: do not push anything

• matching: (default before Git 2.0) push all matching branches

  All branches having the same name in both ends are considered to be matching.

• upstream: push the current branch to its upstream branch (tracking is a deprecated synonym for upstream)

• current: push the current branch to a branch of the same name

• simple: (new in Git 1.7.11, default since Git 2.0) like upstream, but refuses to push if the upstream branch's name is different from the local one

  This is the safest option and is well-suited for beginners.

The simple, current and upstream modes are for those who want to push out a single branch after finishing work, even when the other branches are not yet ready to be pushed out

Command line examples:

To view the current configuration:

git config --global push.default

To set a new configuration:

git config --global push.default current

You can set up default behavior for your git with push.default

git config push.default current

or if you have many repositories and want the same for all then

git config --global push.default current

The current in this setup means that by default you will only push the current branch when you do git push

Other options are:

• nothing : Do not push anything
• matching : Push all matching branches (default)
• tracking : Push the current branch to whatever it is tracking
• current : Push the current branch

UPDATE - NEW WAY TO DO THIS

As of Git 1.7.11 do the following:

git config --global push.default simple

This is a new setting introduced that works in the same way as current, and will be made default to git from v 2.0 according to rumors

git push origin will push all changes on the local branches that have matching remote branches at origin As for git push

Works like git push <remote>, where <remote> is the current branch's remote (or origin, if no remote is configured for the current branch).

From the Examples section of the git-push man page