Gitflow

Gitflow is a branching model for Git, designed to facilitate collaboration and improve workflow efficiency in software development.

It was introduced by Vincent Driessen in 2010 and has become a popular method for managing larger projects with multiple developers. The primary principles of Gitflow involve structured branch management and clear workflows for feature development, releases, and hotfixes.

Main Branches

main

Other possible names: prod or master.

Contains the production-ready code. Every commit to the main branch should represent a release or deployment to production.

test

Serve as an integration branch where all new features and fixes are tested together before they are deemed ready for release.

develop

Other possible names: dev.

Contains the latest delivered development changes for the next release. All feature branches are merged into develop, not directly into main.

Supporting Branches

Gitflow uses several types of supporting branches to aid parallel development and to organize feature integration and release management. Here are some examples.

Feature Branches

• Used for develop new features for future releases.
• Created from the develop branch.
• Typically named feature/{task-number}/{feature-name}.
• Merged back into develop, and then to test.

Hotfix Branches

• Used for patch critical bugs in the production code.
• Created from the main branch.
• Typically named hotfix/{task-number}/{hotfix-description}.
• Merged into both main and develop to ensure the fix is included in future releases.