Term
Git Branch
A branch is an independent line of development in a Git repository — a moving pointer to a commit, allowing parallel work without conflicts with the main code.
Git Branch — explained in more detail
Technically, a branch in Git is just a lightweight pointer to a commit — not a copy of the code, but a 41-byte reference under .git/refs/heads/<name>. That makes branches in Git extremely cheap: creating, switching, deleting all happen in milliseconds.
What branches are used for
- Feature branches: every new feature gets its own branch, isolated from
main. - Bugfix branches: short-lived branches for quick corrections.
- Release branches: stabilise code at a defined state before shipping.
- Long-running branches: parallel versions like
develop,staging,production.
Typical workflows
- Trunk-Based Development: short-lived feature branches, everything flows back into
mainquickly. - GitFlow: separate
develop,releaseandhotfixbranches — more structure, more overhead. - GitHub Flow: a single
main, everything else is a short-lived branch with a pull request.
In the AI coding workflow
AI tools usually create a dedicated branch per task — so main stays runnable at any time, and failed experiments can be discarded simply by deleting the branch.
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GitHub
GitHub is the largest hosting platform for Git repositories — with pull requests, code review, issues and CI/CD via GitHub Actions as the standard toolkit for software development.
LexikonGit Basics for Non-Developers
What version control is, what problem Git solves, and the mental model behind it: repository, commit, branch, merge, and remote, explained plainly.
GlossarPull Request
A pull request is a proposal to merge changes from one branch into another — the standard workflow for code review and collaborative work on a repository.