git 'hint: You have divergent branches and need to specify how to reconcile them' / 'fatal: Need to specify how to reconcile divergent branches' on git pull. Merge, rebase or fast-forward only?

Cause: your local branch and its upstream branch each have commits the other lacks (for example you committed locally while a teammate pushed). git pull is fetch plus an integration step, and with diverged history it cannot just fast-forward. Recent Git versions refuse to guess and ask you to pick a strategy instead of silently creating a merge commit. Fix (pick one): 1. Merge the upstream into your branch: git pull --no-rebase. This adds a merge commit and keeps both histories as they are. 2. Replay your local commits on top of the upstream: git pull --rebase. This gives linear history but rewrites your unpushed commits, so only use it for commits nobody else has based work on. 3. Be strict: git pull --ff-only. It succeeds only when a fast-forward is possible and fails otherwise; then run git fetch and decide with git log --oneline --graph --all HEAD origin/<branch>. 4. Make the choice permanent so the message stops appearing: git config --global pull.rebase false (merge), git config --global pull.rebase true (rebase) or git config --global pull.ff only (refuse non-fast-forward). Omit --global to set it for one repository only. 5. If a rebase or merge stops on conflicts, resolve the files, git add them, then git rebase --continue (or commit the merge). To back out, use git rebase --abort or git merge --abort. Commit or stash uncommitted work before pulling; git documents that merging with non-trivial uncommitted changes can leave you in a state that is hard to back out of. Verify: git pull completes without the hint, and git status shows the branch up to date or ahead only by the commits you intend to push. Sources: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-pull https://git-scm.com/docs/git-merge