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GIT: Switch to remote branch after cloning a repository

This example tries to demonstrate how a freshly cloned local repository can be switched to a remote branch.

First, we need to create a repository that acts as the remote one:

git init -q repo

A file is added and commited to the repository's master branch:

touch file-1
git add file-1
git commit -q file-1 -m '+ file-1'

A new branch, named dev is created (git switch -c), another file added and commited to it:

git switch -q -c dev
touch file-dev
git add file-dev
git commit -q file-dev -m '+ file-dev'

The repository is switched back to the master branch so that the repository, when cloned will check out this branch:

git switch -q master

We're now ready to clone the «remote» repository:

git clone -q repo repo.clone

A simple git switch dev figures out that the repository should switch to the branch with the same name in the remote repository:

git switch dev

ls -1 shows both files that are also present in the dev branch of the remote repository.

ls -1

The output of git branch confirms we're in the «right» branch:

git branch