Branching Strategies
Branching Strategies
This section covers the most common Git branching strategies and the trade-offs between them. Each strategy suits a different combination of team size, deployment frequency, and release process. See the branching-strategies/ folder for detailed breakdowns of individual approaches.
Strategies at a Glance
| Strategy | Long-Lived Branches | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Git Flow | main + develop + release/hotfix branches |
Scheduled releases, teams that need a stable production branch at all times |
| Trunk-Based Development | main only (short-lived feature branches) |
Continuous deployment, high-trust teams |
| GitHub Flow | main only |
Small teams shipping frequently |
| GitLab Flow | Environment branches (staging, production) | Teams that deploy through defined environments |
| Release Branching | One branch per release train | Projects that maintain multiple active versions simultaneously |
Choosing a Strategy — What to Consider
Before picking a strategy, think through these questions:
- How often do you deploy? Daily or multiple times a day favours trunk-based or GitHub Flow. Weekly or monthly releases suit Git Flow or release branching.
- How large is the team? Larger teams with many parallel workstreams benefit from the structure that Git Flow provides. Small teams can move faster with simpler approaches.
- Do you need emergency fixes in production? If so, you need a clear path for hotfixes — Git Flow handles this explicitly.
- How mature is your CI/CD pipeline? Trunk-based development works best when automated testing is comprehensive and fast. Without it, pushing directly to main carries real risk.
- Do you need to support multiple production versions? Release branching is designed precisely for this scenario.
The Default Recommendation
Start simple. GitHub Flow or a light trunk-based approach works well for the vast majority of teams. Introduce the complexity of Git Flow or release branching only when you encounter a concrete pain point that the simpler strategy cannot solve. Complexity in your branching strategy is a cost — justify it with a real problem.