Git Branch Exists on Remote But Won't Show Locally

If a git branch shows up on the remote but git branch -r doesn't list it locally, your fetch refspec is almost always scoped to a single branch instead of all branches. Fix it with one config change: git config remote.origin.fetch "+refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*" followed by git fetch origin --prune . This commonly happens after shallow clones, certain CI checkouts, and clones run with --single-branch . The full diagnosis takes about two minutes — start by confirming the branch exists on th