Glossary

Branch (Git)

A branch in Git is a movable reference to a line of development, allowing teams to isolate work without changing the main branch immediately.

Branch (Git)

What Is a Branch?

In Git, a branch is a named line of development. It lets developers work on features, fixes, or experiments without immediately changing the main branch.

Why Branches Matter

Branches make it easier to:

  • isolate work safely while development is still in progress,
  • review changes before merge,
  • support parallel work across multiple engineers or teams,
  • protect stable branches such as main or release branches.

How Branches Are Used

A common workflow is:

  • create a branch from main,
  • make commits on that branch,
  • open a pull request or merge request,
  • merge the branch once checks and reviews pass.

Short-lived branches are usually easier to review and merge than long-running branches with large divergence.

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