How to Add a Remote in Git

Cloning a repository from a remote server downloads the project to your local computer and leaves you with a local Git repository. This local Git repository will already have a connection to the original remote set up, automatically. This is what the "origin" remote connection points to.

But if you started by creating a local repository on your computer, there won't be such a connection. Let's look at how to add a remote in this short article!

Adding a Remote

First, it's important to understand that origin is in no way a "special" name. In theory, you could name your remote connections any way you like. But the common, agreed-upon convention is to call a repository's main remote connection "origin" - which is why it makes sense to adhere to this naming scheme.

We're going to add a new remote connection to our local repository using the git remote command and need to pieces of information for this:

1. The name we'd like for this new remote.
2. The URL of the remote repository. You can find this after creating a new remote repo on your hosting service of choice (e.g. GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket...).

Let's go:

$ git remote add origin https://github.com/gittower/example.git

You can easily check if the command has worked:

$ git remote -v
origin  https://gittower@github.com/gittower/example.git (fetch)
origin  https://gittower@github.com/gittower/example.git (push)

Voila, looks good!

Learn More

• Check out our command overview on git remote
• More frequently asked questions about Git & version control