First we’ll need to rename the old branch to the new branch. For this we’ll be renaming the master branch to main.
git branch -m master main
Since the rename was only a local change, we now need to push up the new renamed branch to remote.
git push -u origin main
Next we need to tell git that main is the new default branch by updating the reference to HEAD
git symbolic-ref refs/remotes/origin/HEAD refs/remotes/origin/main
Next if you’re pushing to Github you’ll want to go into the branches settings for the repository and update the default branch from the old branch to the new branch (main in this case)
At this point you can verify that the correct branch is set as the default in Github as well as check locally to make sure everything is setup correctly by doing
git branch -a
Once you’ve verified everything is correct you can now safely delete the old branch from Github
git push origin --delete master