Branching strategy defines how developers collaborate on code changes. Trunk-Based Development (TBD): everyone merges to main frequently (daily), feature flags control feature exposure, short-lived branches (<2 days). GitFlow: separate develop/release/hotfix branches, suited for versioned software releases. GitHub Flow: simplified — feature branches + main, deploy from main. Merge strategies: merge commits, squash merge, rebase merge each have different history implications.
Each stage in order — click any step to read what it does.
Two common branching models and their use cases.
The trade-offs worth knowing before you build this.
Long-lived branches cause merge conflicts and integration fear. TBD with feature flags enables continuous delivery — code ships to production multiple times per day.
Deploy the code on Monday (flag off). Turn on the flag for 1% of users Wednesday. Full rollout Friday. If anything goes wrong, disable the flag — instant rollback without a code deploy.
Invest in commit message discipline. Tools like semantic-release and release-please automate CHANGELOG.md generation, version bumping, and release note creation from commit history.
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