How to configure specific upstream push refspec for Git when used with Gerrit?

Question

I'm setting up Git with Gerrit Code Review and am looking for a way to make the necessary Git commands relatively straightforward for users who might be new to Git.

The commands I currently have for starting a new feature branch are essentially (assuming Gerrit is origin):

git checkout baseline
git pull
git checkout -b work1234
git push -u origin work1234

This starts a new work package work1234 branched from some baseline, and the final push creates the branch in Gerrit and sets the upstream. So .git/config looks something like:

[branch "work1234"]
        remote = origin
        merge = refs/heads/work1234

Now, Gerrit wants new commits for review to be pushed to a special refspec, refs/for/work1234 for example. I can do this manually with:

git push origin work1234:refs/for/work1234

What I would like to do is find some way to set up .git/config so that a plain git push will push the current branch to the refspec on the remote that Gerrit requires. I have looked at the following git config areas:

• branch.<name>.* - doesn't seem to have any specific option for setting the push refspec
• push.default - I sort of want upstream here
• remote.<name>.push - I tried refs/heads/*:refs/for/* here but git push always wants to push all local branches in this case, while I just want the current branch

If I can't make Git do this by itself, I'll write a small wrapper script that fully specifies the refspecs. However, it would be better if Git could push to the right place natively.

Answer 1

I ended up writing a new git-submit script:

#!/bin/sh -e

if [ -z "$1" ]; then
    REMOTE=origin
else
    REMOTE=$1
fi

BRANCH=`git symbolic-ref HEAD`
case $BRANCH in
    refs/heads/*)
        BRANCH=`basename $BRANCH`
        ;;
    *)
        echo "I can't figure out which branch you are on."
        exit 1
        ;;
esac

git push $REMOTE HEAD:refs/for/$BRANCH

I put this script in /usr/local/libexec/git-core/git-submit and now there's one command to submit new code to Gerrit for review:

$ git submit

If Gerrit is not the origin remote, then use git submit <remote> as appropriate.