Design¶

The design pattern I often use, borrows ideas of both the Flow and Trunk paradigms, as shown in the visualisation below. Moreover, further down below, I have included a clarification on what purpose each branch serves.

gitGraph
  commit id: "M_1" tag: "v0.1"
  branch development
  commit id: "D_1"
  checkout main
  merge development
  commit id: "M_2" tag: "v0.2"
  branch hotfix
  commit id: "H_1"
  commit id: "H_2"
  checkout main
  merge hotfix
  checkout development
  merge hotfix
  checkout development
  branch feature/api
  commit id: "A_1"
  checkout development
  branch feature/algorithm
  commit id: "AG_1"
  commit id: "AG_2"
  checkout development
  merge feature/algorithm
  commit id: "D_2"
  checkout feature/api
  commit id: "A_2"
  commit id: "A_3"
  checkout main
  merge development
  commit id: "C" tag: "v1.0"

While this may be a little bit convoluted for very small projects, where you can get away with a main and development branch, it is great to use in somewhat larger projects with multiple contributors.

Branch: main¶

This should be the release branch. Only stable, production-grade code should reside here. The only branches that should merge into the main branch are the development and hotfix branches.

• The development branch merges into main when a new release, with new features, has been completed, tested, and is ready for the end user.
• The hotfix branch merges into main to patch showstopping bugs or issues, if they occur.

Branch: development¶

This should be the experimental branch. It incorporates new features that have been merged from feature branches. Furthermore, it is used for very minor development work on existing features that do not merit the creation of a new branch. The only branches that should merge into the development branch are feature branches and the hotfix branch.

• The feature branches merge into development when a feature is considered complete and is ready for testing.
• The hotfix branch merges into development to incorporate patches for showstopping bugs or issues, should they occur on the live application on main.

Branch: hotfix¶

This is an emergency branch that is created directly from the latest release on the main branch to address a showstopping bug or issue that might occur there.

• The branch is deleted immediately after the changes have been merged into main and development.
• Nothing should merge into the hotfix branch.

Branch: feature¶

These are branches that introduce entirely new features to the codebase, or revise/improve upon existing functionality.

• These branches merge into the development branch, and are deleted after the final feature, or improvements, have been completed.