10 Git Branching Strategy Best Practices

In software development, Git branching strategies help developers maintain a clean and organized codebase. By following a branching strategy, developers can work on new features without impacting the main codebase. This allows for more flexibility and collaboration among team members.

There are many different Git branching strategies, but not all of them are created equal. In this article, we will discuss 10 Git branching strategy best practices that every developer should follow. By following these best practices, you can streamline your workflow and make your codebase more organized and manageable.

1. Create a branch for each feature

When you create a branch for each feature, it’s easy to track the progress of that feature and merge it back into the main branch when it’s done. This is especially helpful if multiple people are working on the same project, as it allows everyone to work on their own features without having to worry about conflicting with each other.

It also makes it easier to rollback changes if something goes wrong, as you can simply delete the branch and start again from the last known good state.

2. Use short-lived branches

Short-lived branches are easier to merge, because there’s less chance of conflicts. They’re also easier to review, because there’s less code to review. And they’re easier to manage, because there’s less branches to keep track of.

Ideally, you want to keep your branches alive for only a few days or weeks at most. This means that when you create a new branch, you should be focused on completing the work in that branch as quickly as possible.

This doesn’t mean that you should rush your work. But it does mean that you should avoid adding new features or changes that are unrelated to the work in that branch. If you need to add something that’s unrelated, create a new branch for it.

Short-lived branches also make it easier to revert changes if necessary. If you find a bug in your code, it’s much easier to revert a change that was made a week ago than it is to revert a change that was made six months ago.

Finally, short-lived branches make it easier to delete branches when they’re no longer needed. This is important for two reasons.

First, it keeps your repository clean and tidy. Second, it helps you avoid accidentally deleting a branch that’s still needed.

3. Don’t use long-lived branches

Long-lived branches (i.e. branches that exist for more than a few days or weeks) tend to become stale, which means they are not always up-to-date with the latest changes in the main branch. This can lead to merge conflicts when you try to merge the long-lived branch back into the main branch.

It’s much better to use short-lived branches for your development work, and then merge those branches back into the main branch as soon as the work is completed.

4. Delete your local and remote branches after merging

When you finish working on a feature branch and merge it into your main development branch, you no longer need that branch. Keeping it around serves no purpose and just clutters up your repository. The same goes for remote branches – once they’ve been merged into the main development branch, there’s no need to keep them around on the server.

Not only does deleting unneeded branches help to keep your repository clean, it also helps to prevent accidentally working on old code. If you try to checkout an old branch that’s already been merged, you’ll get an error message telling you that the branch doesn’t exist. This can be helpful in reminding you to switch to the correct branch.

So, when you’re done with a branch, delete it both locally and remotely to keep your repo clean and tidy.

5. Rebase frequently

When you have many commits on your branch, it’s easy to get lost in the history. By rebasing, you can condense all of your work into a single commit, which makes it much easier to understand and review.

Additionally, rebasing gives you a chance to clean up your commit history before merging into master. This is important because it allows you to keep master clean and easy to understand.

Finally, rebasing is a good way to avoid merge conflicts. If you rebase before merging, you can be sure that your changes will be applied on top of the latest changes in master, which reduces the chances of a conflict.

6. Merge early and often

If you wait too long to merge your branches, you run the risk of having to resolve a lot of conflicts. This can be time-consuming and frustrating, and it can lead to errors being introduced into the codebase.

On the other hand, if you merge your branches early and often, you’ll avoid these problems. You’ll also find that it’s easier to keep your branches up to date, which will save you time in the long run.

7. Keep master clean

The master branch is the heart of your project. It should always contain production-ready code that has been thoroughly tested and reviewed. This means that every time you commit to master, you should be confident that the code is stable and won’t break anything in production.

If you allow development work to happen directly on master, it becomes much harder to guarantee this level of quality. Developers might forget to run tests before committing, or they might introduce bugs that only show up in certain edge cases. Over time, these problems can add up and lead to a deterioration of code quality on master.

By keeping master clean, you can avoid these problems and ensure that only high-quality code makes it into production.

8. Avoid merge commits

Merge commits clutter up your git history and make it difficult to see what actually happened. They also make it difficult to revert changes since you have to revert the merge commit itself, which can introduce other problems.

The best way to avoid merge commits is to use a rebase-based workflow. This means that instead of merging your feature branch into your master branch, you rebase your feature branch onto master.

This has the effect of applying your changes on top of the latest changes in master, which avoids the need for a merge commit altogether.

If you’re using GitFlow, you can achieve this by rebasing your feature branch onto develop instead of merging it.

9. Branch naming conventions

Branch naming conventions help to:

– Keep the repository organized
– Make it easier to find the branch you’re looking for
– Communicate the purpose of the branch to others

Some common branch naming conventions include using the issue number, using descriptive names, and using a prefix to indicate the type of branch.

1. Issue Number
If you’re using an issue tracking system like Jira, you can name your branches after the issue number. For example, if you’re working on issue #123, you could name your branch “issue-123”.

2. Descriptive Names
Another option is to use descriptive names for your branches. This is especially helpful if you have multiple people working on the same project, as it will make it easier for everyone to know what each branch is for.

For example, if you’re working on a feature that allows users to login with their Facebook account, you could name your branch “facebook-login”.

3. Prefix
You can also use a prefix to indicate the type of branch. For example, you could use “feature/” for feature branches, “hotfix/” for hotfix branches, and “release/” for release branches.

Using a prefix can help to keep your repository organized and make it easier to find the branch you’re looking for.

10. Use pull requests to manage code reviews

Pull requests give you a way to request feedback on your code from other developers before merging it into the main branch. This is important because it allows you to get feedback early and avoid potential problems that could arise from merging in code that hasn’t been thoroughly reviewed.

Additionally, pull requests can be used to track progress on specific features or bug fixes. This is helpful for project managers who need to keep track of what work has been completed and what still needs to be done.

Finally, using pull requests for code reviews can help improve the overall quality of your codebase by ensuring that all code is reviewed before it’s merged into the main branch.