Git Workflows: Trunk-Based Development vs GitFlow

1. GitFlow (The Old Way)

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GitFlow involves two long-running branches: main and develop.

• Pros: strict control, clear release versions.
• Cons: Merge conflicts hell, slow deployment cycle.

2. Trunk-Based Development (The Modern Way)

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Everyone pushes to main (or short-lived feature branches that merge to main within hours).

1. Developer creates branch feat/login-page.
2. Writes code.
3. Opens PR.
4. CI/CD runs tests.
5. Code merges to main.
6. main automatically deploys to Staging.

gitGraph
   commit
   branch feature-A
   checkout feature-A
   commit
   commit
   checkout main
   merge feature-A
   commit
   branch feature-B
   checkout feature-B
   commit
   checkout main
   merge feature-B
   commit

3. Advanced Scenarios

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The Interactive Rebase

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Before merging your branch, clean up your history.

# Combine the last 3 commits into one
git rebase -i HEAD~3

Change pick to squash for the commits you want to combine.

The Cherry Pick

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Need a specific hotfix from another branch without merging everything?

git cherry-pick <commit-hash>

The “Oh No, I Committed to Main” Protocol

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# 1. Reset main to the previous commit (keeping changes)
git reset --soft HEAD~1

# 2. Create a new branch
git checkout -b my-feature-branch

# 3. Commit there
git commit -m "Saved my work"

4. Branch Protection Rules

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If you use GitHub, enable these settings on main:

• Require pull request reviews before merging.
• Require status checks to pass before merging (CI/CD).
• Require linear history (no merge commits, only rebase/squash).

Comparison

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