branching

Git Branching

Parent Skill: /git Path: /git/branching

Purpose

Master branch management including creating, merging, rebasing, and organizing branches for clean workflows. Learn merge strategies, interactive rebase, and branch naming conventions.

When to Use

Trigger automatically when:

• User mentions: branch, checkout, merge, rebase, switch, delete branch
• Creating new features
• Integrating changes
• Cleaning up branch history
• Branch organization questions

Chat commands:

/git/branching create new feature branch
/git/branching merge feature into main
/git/branching rebase my branch on main
/git/branching delete old branches
/git/branching interactive rebase to clean history

Requirements

Verification

# Check current branch
git branch --show-current

# List all branches
git branch -a

# Check if branch exists
git rev-parse --verify feature-branch

---

Critical Rules

---

Branching Workflow

main (production)
  ├── feature/user-auth
  ├── feature/dashboard
  └── fix/login-bug

Workflow:
1. Create branch from main
2. Make commits on branch
3. Merge or rebase to integrate
4. Delete branch after merge

---

Patterns

Pattern 1: Create and Switch Branches

Problem: Start working on a new feature without affecting main code

# ❌ BAD: Old syntax, easy to make mistakes
git branch feature-login
git checkout feature-login  # Two commands

# Or worse:
git checkout -b feature-login  # Creates locally only

# ✅ GOOD: Modern syntax (Git 2.23+)
git switch -c feature-login
# or
git switch --create feature-login

# ✅ BETTER: Create from specific branch
git switch -c feature-login main  # Create from main

# Create from remote branch
git switch -c local-name origin/remote-branch