Comment 3 for bug 995604

A symbolic ref is a local construct, relevant to and resolved within the copy of the repository where it is created. To outside consumers it appears as a separate branch, so as long as the intent is to pull from and push to the particular repository where that symbolic ref lives this should work fine. However, if it's of interest to have those symbolic ref names available from other copies of repositories, they'll have to be created there manually unless you have low-level control sufficient to duplicate git symbolic-ref commands at that end (for example gitolite grew a feature recently enabling project owners to be able to add these: http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/182115 ). I couldn't find any positive confirmation that github has a similar feature, so further exploration there is in order.

Also worrisome, based my interpretation of this thread repointing things other than HEAD is probably an off-label use from upstream Git's perspective: http://git.661346.n2.nabble.com/What-s-the-definition-of-a-valid-Git-symbolic-reference-td6025154.html