git remote provides the commands for manipulating local
configuration of remotes. It also offers some ability to fetch commits
from a remote (git remote update) but this has at this point seems
to have been entirely superseded by git fetch since
it gained the --{all,multiple,prune} options.
git remote show may contact the remote for just branch information
(without updating local tracking branches); this is probably better
done with git ls-remote when needed programatically.