Branch Management

Gitflow

Branch management is an important consideration for working collaboratively with git and GitHub. Branching allows you to diverge from the main line of development and continue to do work without messing with that main line [1]. A good method for branch management is Gitflow [2]. The referenced article contains all information.

Workflow example

Aim: implement new features into the code and release a new version.

1. Development of the code takes place on the development (or dev) branch. When you want to work on a new feature or fix a bug, create a new feature branch from the development branch.
2. Work on the code on the feature branch
3. Create a pull request on GitHub to merge the feature branch into the development branch.
4. Repeat previous steps to implement more features. Best practice is to keep the pull request small; this makes it easy to review and limits the possibilty of generating conflicts.
5. When ready make a new release, create a release branch from the development branch.
6. On the release branch: compile and package the software, update documentation.
7. Create pull request to merge the release branch with the main branch. Delete release branch after merge.

References

[1] https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/using-branches
[2] https://nvie.com/posts/a-successful-git-branching-model/