git - Create empty branch on GitHub

Question

I want to create a new GitHub branch, called release.

This branch needs to be empty! However, there is an existing branch with x commits and I don't want to have its commit history.

The only method I found is to create a local --orphan branch.

Answer 1

What's wrong with the --orphan option? If you want a branch that is empty and have no history, this is the way to go...

git checkout --orphan empty-branch

Then you can remove all the files you'll have in the staging area (so that they don't get committed):

git rm -rf .

At this point you have an empty branch, on your machine.

Before you can push to GitHub (or any other Git repository), you will need at least one commit, even if it does not have any content on it (i.e. empty commit), as you cannot push an empty branch

git commit --allow-empty -m "root commit"

Finally, push it to the remote, and crack open a beer

git push origin empty-branch