Best Branching Strategies for Dev Teams
Explains why environment-based branching slows development, and recommends using feature flags and progressive rollouts for simpler, faster, and safer …
TL;DR; Branch promotion slows down delivery and adds risk, while modern teams merge changes into the main branch as soon as they are ready and use feature flags to separate deployment from release. Testing in production-like environments and instant rollbacks improve speed and safety. Focus on managing the flow of work, not branches, to streamline delivery.
Branch promotion is a relic of slow, manual software delivery.
Modern teams integrate continuously:
This approach makes rollbacks instant—no need for painful cherry-picking. And it eliminates reverse integration, a practice that introduces more risk than it removes.
The best teams don’t manage branches. They manage flow.
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