Removing a tag when having a branch with the same name
Platform Notice: Cloud and Data Center - This article applies equally to both cloud and data center platforms.
Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.
*Except Fisheye and Crucible
Summary
This article provides instructions on how to securely delete a tag from remote when the tag to be removed has the same name as a branch in the repository.
Environment
This is for any git repository.
Solution
Since git uses different namespaces for tag and branches, you can have a tag with the same name as a branch in your repository. However, depending on what command is used to delete a tag from remote, you might accidentally delete the branch with the same name.
To securely delete a tag from remote, you can specify the full ref in the command, which will make sure it never accidentally deletes a branch :
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git push origin :refs/tags/<TAG_NAME>Replace the <TAG_NAME> field with the name of the tag to be removed. This command needs to be executed inside your local clone of the repository.
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