Federico's Blog

I have just renamed librsvg's master branch to main, as other modules already have.

Librsvg master branch renamed to main

This is what I did:

Rename the local branch, and push it:

git branch -m master main
git push origin main

Change the default branch in gitlab; for librsvg this is in the repository settings / Default branch - change that to main.
Set the same protection for the main branch as there was for master, if any - repository settings / Protected branches -> create a new protection and copy the settings from master.
Unprotect the master branch so I can delete it - repository settings / Protected branches -> unprotect the master branch.
Delete the master branch in the branches list.
Update the CI and build scripts: for librsvg it was just .gitlab-ci.yml.
Update your documentation: for librsvg it was just COMPILING.md.
Notify the release team; I created an issue and one for gnome-build-meta.

Update 2021/Sep/30: Extra things which Philip Withnall suggested:

Notify gnome-i18n@gnome.org so they can update the damned-lies software. (Librsvg has no translations).
See if any project have a librsvg.wrap (for Meson?) and notify them. I don't think I'm using search engines correctly...
Re-protect the master branch to prevent people accidentally pushing to it. Since that branch no longer exists, gitlab lets you create a protection by glob matching on a name, not an actual branch.

Update 2022/Jul/06: Some extra configuration to update:

If your project has gitlab badges, verify that they point to the main branch in settings/general/badges. You can use %{default_branch} as part of the badge URLs to avoid hardcoding names.

If you have a local checkout, you can do this:

# update from upstream
git fetch origin

# switch to your local master branch
git checkout master

# rename your local branch
git branch -m master main

# Remove the old upstream...
git branch --unset-upstream

# ... and set the new one
git branch -u origin/main

That's all!