git-symbolic-ref - Read, modify and delete symbolic refs

       Given one argument, reads which branch head the given symbolic ref refers to and outputs its path,
       relative to the .git/ directory. Typically you would give HEAD as the <name> argument to see which branch
       your working tree is on.

       Given two arguments, creates or updates a symbolic ref <name> to point at the given branch <ref>.

       Given --delete and an additional argument, deletes the given symbolic ref.

       A symbolic ref is a regular file that stores a string that begins with ref:refs/. For example, your
       .git/HEAD is a regular file whose content is ref:refs/heads/master.

       Part of the git(1) suite

Git 2.48.1                                         07/02/2025                                GIT-SYMBOLIC-REF(1)

       git-symbolic-ref - Read, modify and delete symbolic refs

       In the past, .git/HEAD was a symbolic link pointing at refs/heads/master. When we wanted to switch to
       another branch, we did ln-sfrefs/heads/newbranch.git/HEAD, and when we wanted to find out which branch
       we are on, we did readlink.git/HEAD. But symbolic links are not entirely portable, so they are now
       deprecated and symbolic refs (as described above) are used by default.

       gitsymbolic-ref will exit with status 0 if the contents of the symbolic ref were printed correctly, with
       status 1 if the requested name is not a symbolic ref, or 128 if another error occurs.

       -d, --delete
           Delete the symbolic ref <name>.

       -q, --quiet
           Do not issue an error message if the <name> is not a symbolic ref but a detached HEAD; instead exit
           with non-zero status silently.

       --short
           When showing the value of <name> as a symbolic ref, try to shorten the value, e.g. from
           refs/heads/master to master.

       --recurse, --no-recurse
           When showing the value of <name> as a symbolic ref, if <name> refers to another symbolic ref, follow
           such a chain of symbolic refs until the result no longer points at a symbolic ref (--recurse, which
           is the default).  --no-recurse stops after dereferencing only a single level of symbolic ref.

       -m
           Update the reflog for <name> with <reason>. This is valid only when creating or updating a symbolic
           ref.

git-update-ref(1)

gitsymbolic-ref [-m <reason>] <name> <ref>
       gitsymbolic-ref [-q] [--short] [--no-recurse] <name>
       gitsymbolic-ref --delete [-q] <name>