Files
holocron/plugins/git/skills/git-remotes/references/pull.md
Defame1297 af8b46cd57 chore(plugins): sync generated content mirrors
Regenerate plugins/*/skills/ from plugins/*/.apm/ after the previous
four commits, via scripts/sync-plugin-content.sh --all. The mirror is
generated output (ADR-0017) that check-plugin-content-sync's pre-push
hook diffs against .apm/; nothing here is hand-edited.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01EeH8SCbcrCAQrtymkNuhKP
2026-09-07 20:43:51 +00:00

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Markdown

---
topic: pull
source_keys:
- git-scm-pull-docs
- context7-git-htmldocs
---
# Pulling
Default strategy: `--ff-only`. It fails on divergence, which forces a conscious choice instead of an accidental merge commit.
- **Fast-forward only**: `rtk git pull --ff-only` — the recommended default
- **Rebase**: `rtk git pull --rebase` replays your commits on top for linear history, but rewrites SHAs. Verify nothing being replayed has been pushed: rebasing published commits breaks everyone downstream.
- **Merge**: `rtk git pull --no-rebase` — three-way merge commit, preserves original commits, non-linear
- **Rebase preserving merges**: `rtk git pull --rebase=merges` keeps intentional local merge commits during the replay
- **Stage without committing**: `rtk git pull --squash` collapses incoming commits into staged changes; you write the message
- **Merge strategy**: Git 2.34+ defaults to `ort` (`recursive` is now an alias for it). Strategy options such as `-X ours`, `-X theirs`, `-X ignore-space-change` pass through unchanged.
- **Submodules**: `--recurse-submodules` only fetches submodules already checked out. Newly added ones are not initialized — use the `git-submodules` skill for those.
## On divergence
A pull that diverges with no strategy configured fails, and that failure is the useful outcome. Report the divergence and the three ways out — `--ff-only`, `--rebase`, `--no-rebase` — and let the caller choose. Auto-merging a diverged branch buries a decision that belongs to the human.
## Config precedence
`--ff-only` is not Git's default on an unset config, and never has been. Older versions silently
merged on divergence; current ones refuse outright — verified on Git 2.39.5, a divergent pull with
nothing configured prints the reconciliation hint and exits 128 with
`fatal: Need to specify how to reconcile divergent branches.` The behaviour therefore still varies
by installed version, and neither variant is the one you want. Set it explicitly.
Highest wins:
1. Command-line flag (`--ff-only` / `--rebase` / `--no-rebase`)
2. `pull.rebase` config (global or local)
3. `branch.<name>.rebase` (branch-specific override)
4. `branch.autoSetupRebase` (set automatically when the tracking branch was created)
```bash
rtk git config pull.ff only # deterministic default across Git versions
rtk git config --global pull.rebase true
rtk git config branch.develop.rebase false # develop always merges, regardless of the global default
```