What does FETCH_HEAD in Git mean?

git pull --help says:

> In its default mode, git pull is shorthand for git fetch followed by git merge FETCH_HEAD.

What is this FETCH_HEAD and what is actually merged during git pull?

FETCH_HEAD is a short-lived ref, to keep track of what has just been fetched from the remote repository. git pull first invokes git fetch, in normal cases fetching a branch from the remote; FETCH_HEAD points to the tip of this branch (it stores the SHA1 of the commit, just as branches do). git pull then invokes git merge, merging FETCH_HEAD into the current branch.

The result is exactly what you'd expect: the commit at the tip of the appropriate remote branch is merged into the commit at the tip of your current branch.

This is a bit like doing git fetch without arguments (or git remote update), updating all your remote branches, then running git merge origin/<branch>, but using FETCH_HEAD internally instead to refer to whatever single ref was fetched, instead of needing to name things.

The FETCH_HEAD is a reference to the tip of the last fetch, whether that fetch was initiated directly using the fetch command or as part of a pull. The current value of FETCH_HEAD is stored in the .git folder in a file named, you guessed it, FETCH_HEAD.

So if I issue:

git fetch https://github.com/ryanmaxwell/Fragaria

FETCH_HEAD may contain

3cfda7cfdcf9fb78b44d991f8470df56723658d3		https://github.com/ryanmaxwell/Fragaria

If I have the remote repo configured as a remote tracking branch then I can follow my fetch with a merge of the tracking branch. If I don't I can merge the tip of the last fetch directly using FETCH_HEAD.

git merge FETCH_HEAD

As mentioned in Jonathan's answer, FETCH_HEAD corresponds to the file .git/FETCH_HEAD. Typically, the file will look like this:

71f026561ddb57063681109aadd0de5bac26ada9                	    branch 'some-branch' of <remote URL>
669980e32769626587c5f3c45334fb81e5f44c34        not-for-merge   branch 'some-other-branch' of <remote URL>
b858c89278ab1469c71340eef8cf38cc4ef03fed        not-for-merge   branch 'yet-some-other-branch' of <remote URL>

Note how all branches but one are marked not-for-merge. The odd one out is the branch that was checked out before the fetch. In summary: FETCH_HEAD essentially corresponds to the remote version of the branch that's currently checked out.

I have just discovered and used FETCH_HEAD. I wanted a local copy of some software from a server and I did

git fetch gitserver release_1

gitserver is the name of my machine that stores git repositories. release_1 is a tag for a version of the software. To my surprise, release_1 was then nowhere to be found on my local machine. I had to type

 git tag release_1 FETCH_HEAD 

to complete the copy of the tagged chain of commits (release_1) from the remote repository to the local one. Fetch had found the remote tag, copied the commit to my local machine, had not created a local tag, but had set FETCH_HEAD to the value of the commit, so that I could find and use it. I then used FETCH_HEAD to create a local tag which matched the tag on the remote. That is a practical illustration of what FETCH_HEAD is and how it can be used, and might be useful to someone else wondering why git fetch doesn't do what you would naively expect.

In my opinion it is best avoided for that purpose and a better way to achieve what I was trying to do is

git fetch gitserver release_1:release_1

i.e. to fetch release_1 and call it release_1 locally. (It is source:dest, see https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Internals-The-Refspec; just in case you'd like to give it a different name!)

You might want to use FETCH_HEAD at times though:-

git fetch gitserver bugfix1234
git cherry-pick FETCH_HEAD

might be a nice way of using bug fix number 1234 from your Git server, and leaving Git's garbage collection to dispose of the copy from the server once the fix has been cherry-picked onto your current branch. (I am assuming that there is a nice clean tagged commit containing the whole of the bug fix on the server!)

git pull is combination of a fetch followed by a merge. When git fetch happens it notes the head commit of what it fetched in FETCH_HEAD (just a file by that name in .git) And these commits are then merged into your working directory.

> FETCH_HEAD is a short-lived ref, to keep track of what has just been fetched from the remote repository.

Actually, ... not always considering that, with Git 2.29 (Q4 2020), "git fetch"^(man) learned --no-write-fetch-head option to avoid writing the FETCH_HEAD file.

See commit 887952b (18 Aug 2020) by Junio C Hamano (gitster).
^{(Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit b556050, 24 Aug 2020)}

> ## fetch: optionally allow disabling FETCH_HEAD update
> ^{Signed-off-by: Derrick Stolee}

> If you run fetch but record the result in remote-tracking branches, and either if you do nothing with the fetched refs (e.g. you are merely mirroring) or if you always work from the remote-tracking refs (e.g. you fetch and then merge origin/branchname separately), you can get away with having no FETCH_HEAD at all.
> > Teach "git fetch"^(man) a command line option "--[no-]write-fetch-head". > > - The default is to write FETCH_HEAD, and the option is primarily meant to be used with the "--no-" prefix to override this default, because there is no matching fetch.writeFetchHEAD configuration variable to flip the default to off (in which case, the positive form may become necessary to defeat it).
> > Note that under "--dry-run" mode, FETCH_HEAD is never written; otherwise you'd see list of objects in the file that you do not actually have.
> > Passing --write-fetch-head does not force [git fetch](https://github.com/git/git/blob/887952b8c680626f4721cb5fa57704478801aca4/Documentation/git-fetch.txt)<sup>([man](https://git-scm.com/docs/git-fetch))</sup> to write the file.

fetch-options now includes in its man page:

> ## --[no-]write-fetch-head > > Write the list of remote refs fetched in the FETCH_HEAD file directly under $GIT_DIR.
This is the default. > > Passing --no-write-fetch-head from the command line tells > Git not to write the file.
Under --dry-run option, the file is never written.

---

Consider also, still with Git 2.29 (Q4 2020), the FETCH_HEAD is now always read from the filesystem regardless of the ref backend in use, as its format is much richer than the normal refs, and written directly by "git fetch"^(man) as a plain file..

See commit e811530, commit 5085aef, commit 4877c6c, commit e39620f (19 Aug 2020) by Han-Wen Nienhuys (hanwen).
^{(Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit 98df75b, 27 Aug 2020)}

> ## refs: read FETCH_HEAD and MERGE_HEAD generically
> ^{Signed-off-by: Han-Wen Nienhuys}

> The FETCH_HEAD and MERGE_HEAD refs must be stored in a file, regardless of the type of ref backend. This is because they can hold more than just a single ref.
> > To accomodate them for alternate ref backends, read them from a file generically in refs_read_raw_ref().

---

With Git 2.29 (Q4 2020), Updates to on-demand fetching code in lazily cloned repositories.

See commit db3c293 (02 Sep 2020), and commit 9dfa8db, commit 7ca3c0a, commit 5c3b801, commit abcb7ee, commit e5b9421, commit 2b713c2, commit cbe566a (17 Aug 2020) by Jonathan Tan (jhowtan).
^{(Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit b4100f3, 03 Sep 2020)}

> ## fetch: no FETCH_HEAD display if --no-write-fetch-head
> ^{Signed-off-by: Jonathan Tan}

> 887952b8c6 ("fetch: optionally allow disabling FETCH_HEAD update", 2020-08-18, Git v2.29.0 -- merge listed in batch #10) introduced the ability to disable writing to FETCH_HEAD during fetch, but did not suppress the "<source> -> FETCH_HEAD" message when this ability is used. > > This message is misleading in this case, because FETCH_HEAD is not written. > > Also, because "fetch" is used to lazy-fetch missing objects in a partial clone, this significantly clutters up the output in that case since the objects to be fetched are potentially numerous.
> > Therefore, suppress this message when --no-write-fetch-head is passed (but not when --dry-run is set).

I was just trying to pull down a (patch) branch that I created from making changes directly from GitHub. The branch only appeared on GH. When I tried doing a g pull, the branch didn’t show up.

I was able to checkout the branch using:

git fetch origin pull/2/head
git checkout -b <desired-branch-name> FETCH_HEAD