How to Fix Error: src refspec master does not match any in Git

The error message “src refspec master does not match any” occurs when Git cannot find the branch you referenced (in this case, “master”) in your local repository.

Common causes of the error

  1. The branch doesn’t exist. If you just initialized your Git repository, there are no commits and thus no branches. Git does not create the “master” branch until you make the first commit.

  2. The branch name is incorrect. You might get this error if you’re trying to push to a branch that doesn’t exist or has a different name. For example, many Git repositories have moved from using the branch name “master” to “main”. So make sure you’re using the right branch name.

How to fix src refspec master does not match error

If you just initialized your Git repository and haven’t made any commits yet, you can fix this issue by making your first commit:

git add . 
git commit -m "Initial commit"

If you believe the branch name might be the issue, you can list all the branches in your Git repository with this command:

git branch -a

And if you want to create and switch to a new branch named “master” (or any other name), you can use this command:

git checkout -b master

Remember, it’s common now to use “main” as the default branch instead of “master”.

To change your default branch to “main”, you can do so with these commands:

git branch -m master main 
git push -u origin main

The first command renames the branch in your local repository, and the second command pushes the renamed branch to the remote repository and sets it as the upstream branch.

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