Answer by Wernight for How do I get the current branch name in Git?

You have also git symbolic-ref HEAD which displays the full refspec.

To show only the branch name in Git v1.8 and later (thank's to Greg for pointing that out):

git symbolic-ref --short HEAD

On Git v1.7+ you can also do:

git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD

Both should give the same branch name if you're on a branch. If you're on a detached head answers differ.

Note:

On an earlier client, this seems to work:

git symbolic-ref HEAD | sed -e "s/^refs\/heads\///"

–Darien 26. Mar 2014