Git Branching Strategy Best Practices

In this article we are going to cover Git Branching Strategy Best Practices,What is Git branching,Why do we need branching in Git,What are the advantages of branching in Git,Commands used in Git branching.

What is Git branching ?

Git branching is working on branches by pulling the codebase from the master
as per requirement in the project without affecting the master codebase. The
branch is a short-lived branch which is created for a particular feature or related
work and can be deleted once the work is completed and merged back to the
master branch.

Why do we need branching in Git ?

Branching is necessary in a large project as multiple developers work on the
same project from different machines and each may have to work on the related
issue assigned to the

What are the advantages of branching in Git ?

• Developer can work on specific feature or as per the need in the project
• without affecting the codebase
• Multiple developers can work on the same codebase simultaneously
• Easy to work and detect bugs before merging to the master branch
• Can fix the problem when the need arises

Git Branching Strategy Best Practices

There can be many branches at various levels of working in order to get to a
stable level. For example

• Master branch – Is the main branch which has the source code
• Develop branch – Is the branch which developers work on
• Feature branch – Is the branch which developer work on for
  assigned/particular feature
• Release branch – Is the branch which has the code ready for release
• Hotfix branch – Is the branch where a developer has to quickly fix an issue immediate
  

Commands used in Git branching

creates a new branch

git branch <branch_name>

merges a branch

git merge <branch_name>

To switch between branches

git checkout <branch_name>

How does Git Branching Strategy works? Let’s understand with a diagram

The simple way of understanding like from which branch will be the code branched off. As shown in the figure the develop branch and the hotfix branch work from the codebase which is on the master branch also known as main branch.

The release and the feature work on the code from the develop branch. In either case the main codebase is not affected if any failure happens. At anytime if there is any failure it can be rolled back and since the codebase is unaffected the developers can rework on it.

The flow diagram of branching off into different branches as per requirement.

Conclusion:

In this article we have covered Git Branching Strategy Best Practices,What is Git branching,Why do we need branching in Git,What are the advantages of branching in Git,Commands used in Git branching.

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Reference:

Git Branching strategy official page