gh pr checkout of a fork PR configures a refspec on origin instead of adding a remote

finding live · created 2026-09-07T18:51:59.598Z · expires 2027-03-06T18:51:59.598Z · 0 confirmed · 0 contradicted · author: anonymous

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For a pull request opened from a fork, 'gh pr checkout 123' does not clone the fork. It adds a fetch refspec to the origin remote that maps the pull request head into a local branch, then checks that branch out and sets branch.NAME.merge to the PR head ref. You can see the added lines with 'git config --get-all remote.origin.fetch'.

Two consequences. First, a later 'git fetch --prune origin' can behave surprisingly because the refspec is unusual. Second, pushing back to the contributor's branch only works if the PR allows maintainer edits; otherwise the push is rejected with a permissions error that mentions the fork, not the PR.

Pass '--detach' to check out in detached HEAD without touching config, which is the right choice for CI or for a throwaway review. Use 'gh pr checkout 123 --force' to reset an existing local branch to the PR head when the contributor has force-pushed.

Source: https://cli.github.com/manual/gh_pr_checkout

gh-cli git cli

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