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Git Branch Naming Convention

Working on a big company with projects that could scale from a one-man team then suddenly to a 20 developers team, having a manageable code repository is a need. Most Proof of Concept projects start with a repository with all changes being applied directly to the master branch. Elevating one into a proper big scale repository is a common path being taken by new developers when their small-scale project is suddenly noticed.

On my end, having to work on dozens of different projects like these, I came up with this branch naming convention.

I separated these branches into two categories:

Code Flow Branches

These branches which we expect to be permanently available on the repository follow the flow of code changes starting from development until the production.

  • Development (dev)

    All new features and bug fixes should be brought to the development branch. Resolving developer codes conflicts should be done as early as here.

  • QA/Test (test)

    Contains all codes ready for QA testing.

  • Staging (staging , Optional)

    It contains tested features that the stakeholders wanted to be available either for a demo or a proposal before elevating into the production. Decisions are made here if a feature should be finally brought to the production code.

  • Master (master)

    The production branch, if the repository is published, this is the default branch being presented.

Except for Hotfixes, we want our codes to follow a one-way merge starting from development > test > staging > production.

Temporary Branches

As the name implies, these are disposable branches that can be created and deleted by need of the developer or deployer.

  • Feature

    Any code changes for a new module or use case should be done on a feature branch. This branch is created based on the current development branch. When all changes are Done, a Pull Request/Merge Request is needed to put all of these to the development branch.

    Examples:

    • feature/integrate-swagger
    • feature/JIRA-1234
    • feature/JIRA-1234_support-dark-theme

It is recommended to use all lower caps letters and hyphen (-) to separate words unless it is a specific item name or ID. Underscore (_) could be used to separate the ID and description.

  • Bug Fix

    If the code changes made from the feature branch were rejected after a release, sprint or demo, any necessary fixes after that should be done on the bugfix branch.

    Examples:

    • bugfix/more-gray-shades
    • bugfix/JIRA-1444_gray-on-blur-fix
  • Hot Fix

    If there is a need to fix a blocker, do a temporary patch, apply a critical framework or configuration change that should be handled immediately, it should be created as a Hotfix. It does not follow the scheduled integration of code and could be merged directly to the production branch, then on the development branch later.

    Examples:

    • hotfix/disable-endpoint-zero-day-exploit
    • hotfix/increase-scaling-threshold
  • Experimental

    Any new feature or idea that is not part of a release or a sprint. A branch for playing around.

    Examples:

    • experimental/dark-theme-support
  • Build

    A branch specifically for creating specific build artifacts or for doing code coverage runs.

    Examples:

    • build/jacoco-metric
  • Release

    A branch for tagging a specific release version

    Examples:

    • release/myapp-1.01.123

    Git also supports tagging a specific commit history of the repository. A release branch is used if there is a need to make the code available for checkout or use.

  • Merging

    A temporary branch for resolving merge conflicts, usually between the latest development and a feature or Hotfix branch. This can also be used if two branches of a feature being worked on by multiple developers need to be merged, verified and finalized.

    Examples:

    • merge/dev_lombok-refactoring
    • merge/combined-device-support

Any organization can come up with their own convention. This applies to my current Team's need and there could be a better approach which could improve upon these. What are your conventions on your own organization?

Top comments (16)

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shvahabi profile image
Shahed • Edited

Very thorough summary of all usual conventions. Just want to add after the Black Lives Matter movement, git provided option to use names other than master, the option is: git init --initial-branch=stable. Hence technically speaking master is deprecated in favour of other names such as stable or main.

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jstewart8053 profile image
jstewart8053 • Edited

You mean after the Black Lives Matter movement. It's not a 'thing'. smh
Very helpful post though, what do you think about emojis in commits? I have seen a lot on the issue lately.

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shvahabi profile image
Shahed • Edited

Sure you are right, since English is not my native language 😅. The correct word is movement, and thanks. I edited my original reply.

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jstewart8053 profile image
jstewart8053

No worries :)

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gitbusycoding profile image
Ravi Ponamgi

Liked "No worries", considering the OP was made with the best of intentions.

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evilkittenlord profile image
EvilKittenLord

Everything needs a naming scheme. :)
Folks might be interested in the naming scheme I've been using that enables automatic semver detection.
github.com/marketplace/actions/git...

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federicoaguilar profile image
federico

2024 and this post is still awesome.

For those who are interested in naming conventions for commits, I found this post that builds on this one.

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clifton893 profile image
Clifton Long Jr.

Great post, and very helpful! 😄

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zeedu_dev profile image
Eduardo Zepeda

This is so useful, most people should read this post.

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slidenerd profile image
slidenerd • Edited

What do you call a branch where you start a python project empty, add a gitignore, readme, poetry, tox, pre-commit, add a main.py setup pyproject.toml install pytest and run some tests inside the tests directory which you also create

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robertotonino profile image
Roberto Tonino

Great post, thanks! Definitely gonna use this convention :)

I would suggest a branch for dependencies upgrading too (expecially ones with breaking changes), what do you think?

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couchcamote profile image
couchcamote • Edited

Glad to have helped.
For new dependencies upgrading we can consider that as a new feature. Basically, it is like new code changes with new libraries and code updated to use them. It should also follow the dev-test-stage-prod flow and it usually has planned schedule for release.

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ahmadf20 profile image
ahmad faaiz

Great! Thanks~

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gitbusycoding profile image
Ravi Ponamgi

Great summary!

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ponyjackal profile image
ponyjackal

Thanks for your post,