Creating a Branching Strategy for Small Teams

by Vedrana Tozija

4 min read

In my development, I use Git all the time. As it turns out as many as 90% of all small engineering teams use Git as well. And I know that in the beginning it can be a little overwhelming balancing between setting up processes and standards and putting out new features in a swift manner and focus on expanding your project.

So, in my experience, these are the best practices for setting up a Git structure when you are working in a small team (I would define small as less than 8 people).

Separate Your Branches into Two Groups

Separate your branches into two groups - main branches and supporting branches. I should mention ahead - there is no difference in these branches from a technical perspective. The difference is only in how they are used. In reality, they are just plain old Git branches. 

Main Branches

Master:

The origin/master branch represents the main branch of your application. The source code of HEAD is always in a production-ready state.

Develop:

The origin/develop branch is a branch that is parallel to the master branch. It stores the latest ready-for-release development changes. The source code of HEAD reflects the changes for the next release.

Supporting Branches

Feature:

Feature branches are used to develop a feature for a future release. This branch exists as long as the feature is being developed, but eventually, it ends up being merged in the develop branch.

  • May branch off from: develop
  • May be merged into: develop
  • Branch naming convention: feature/name-of-feature (e.g feature/login)
Steps for Creating a Feature Branch

$ git checkout develop

  • Switched to branch develop

$ git pull origin develop

  • (get all up to date changes from develop)
  • $ git checkout -b feature/feature-name
  • Switched to new branch ‘feature/feature-name’

After it’s done it’s merged into the develop branch
(on branch develop)
$ git merge feature/name-of-feature

Hotfix:

Hotfix branches are used for when a critical bug is found in production and a fix is needed immediately. When a critical bug in production arises a hotfix branch is created so that the problem is resolved within the appropriate time frame.

  • - May branch off from: master
  • - May be merged into: master or develop
  • - Branch naming convention: hotfix/description-of-fix (e.g hotfix/login-fix
Steps for Creating a Hotfix Branch
  • $ git checkout master
  • Switched to branch master
  • $ git pull origin master
  • (get all up to date changes from master)
  • $ git checkout -b hotfix/description-of-fix
  • Switched to new branch hotfix/description-of-fix

After it’s done it’s merged into the master branch
(on branch master)
$ git merge hotfix/description-of-fix

Bugfix:

Bugfix branches are used for when a bug is found that has not been deployed on production yet. Probably found during the QA process, a bug that is not of critical importance is found and for the purposes of solving it a bugfix branch is created. 

  • - May branch off from: develop
  • - May be merged into: develop
  • - Branch naming convention: bugfix/description-of-bug (e.g bugfix/admin-login-bug
Steps for Creating a Bugfix Branch
  • $ git checkout develop
  • Switched to branch develop
  • $ git pull origin develop
  • (get all up to date changes from develop)
  • $ git checkout -b bugfix/description-of-bug
  • Switched to new branch bugfix/description-of-bug

After it’s done it’s merged into the develop branch
(on branch develop)
$ git merge bugfix/description-of-bug

Final Word

While I know that there are a million different ways to use Git, that every team is different and there is nothing really groundbreaking in this strategy, it has proven tremendously useful in my projects. It forms a model that is easy to follow and implement and allows developers to easily remedy any mistakes that may occur.

And if you ever have any issues, always remember:

creating a branching strategy

FAQs

Q: What are Git branching strategies?

Git branching strategies are different ways companies use branching/merging to maintain work in modern software engineering teams.

Q: What is a branching strategy in DevOps?

There are several different pre-defined branching strategies (git flow, feature/branch) companies can choose to work with. Depending on the software requirements/team structure organizations choose to come up with their own strategies.

Q: What is the difference between master and develop branch?

In most of cases, the master branch contains the latest code changes in the code that are either released or ready to be released. The develop branch is used for testing/development purposes.

Q: What is the purpose of branching?
Branching allows organizations to have a streamlined software engineering processes, avoid code overwriting and increase ownership within teams.
Vedrana Tozija
Vedrana Tozija
Software Engineer

Vedrana is a Senior Software Engineer that specializes in PHP, Laravel, and JavaScript. She's an experienced conference speaker, Progressive Web applications advocate, and promoter of gender equality at the workplace. Her list of achievements also includes being a mentor at the first female Bootcamp in Macedonia. In her free time, she loves discovering new things about the Universe and spending quality time with her friends and family.

Expertise
  • PHP
  • Laravel
  • MySQL
  • JavaScript

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