branching-strategy

branching-strategy is a skill for Claude Code from VersoXBT/claude-initial-setup. It costs 52 tokens per session (1,535 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A guide to organizing Git branches, which are separate lines of work in a code repository, and combining their changes.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when creating feature, fix, release, or hotfix branches; choosing Git Flow or trunk-based development; preparing releases; or resolving merge conflicts.
Why use it?
It helps teams choose a branching approach, keep branch names consistent, and decide whether to merge or rebase changes without creating a tangled history.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin.

Part of the claude-initial-setup plugin — 75 skills, 15 commands, 14 agents, 2 hooks shipped together

Good fit Use it when creating feature, fix, release, or hotfix branches; choosing Git Flow or trunk-based development; preparing releases; or resolving merge conflicts.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/versoxbt/claude-initial-setup/branching-strategy
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add VersoXBT/claude-initial-setup --skill branching-strategy
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/VersoXBT/claude-initial-setup

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install claude-initial-setup, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 75 skills, 15 commands, 14 agents, 2 hooks.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for branching-strategy

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/versoxbt/claude-initial-setup/branching-strategy/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/versoxbt/claude-initial-setup/branching-strategy)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/versoxbt/claude-initial-setup/branching-strategy"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/versoxbt/claude-initial-setup/branching-strategy/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for branching-strategy

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/versoxbt/claude-initial-setup/branching-strategy"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/versoxbt/claude-initial-setup/branching-strategy.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 52 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,535 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00052 $0.01535
Opus 5 $0.00026 $0.00767
Sonnet 5 $0.00010 $0.00307
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00153

Measured 8d ago against content hash e7517dcc0c71, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-08, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

branching-strategy scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 8d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

skills/core-workflow/branching-strategy/SKILL.md · 210 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 210 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Branching Strategy

Choose and apply the right branching model for the project's size, team, and release cadence.

When to Use

  • Creating a new branch for a feature, fix, or release
  • Deciding between merge and rebase
  • Setting up a new repository's branching conventions
  • Discussing release management and deployment strategies
  • Resolving merge conflicts or untangling branch history

Core Patterns

Branch Naming Conventions

Use a consistent prefix/slug format:

# Format: <type>/<ticket-id>-<short-description>
feature/AUTH-123-add-sso-login
fix/BUG-456-null-pointer-on-logout
refactor/TECH-789-extract-auth-service
hotfix/SEC-101-patch-xss-vulnerability
release/v2.3.0
chore/TECH-202-upgrade-node-20

# Without ticket system
feature/add-user-registration
fix/prevent-race-condition-in-cache

Rules:

  • Lowercase with hyphens (kebab-case)
  • Keep under 50 characters after the prefix
  • Include ticket ID when available
  • Use descriptive slugs, not cryptic abbreviations

Git Flow (Structured Releases)

Best for: projects with scheduled releases, multiple environments, or compliance requirements.

main ────────●────────────────●──────────── (production)
              \              /
release/v2.1   ●────●──────●               (stabilization)
              /      \
develop ────●────●────●────●────●────────── (integration)
            \        /          \
feature/x    ●──●──●            \
                                 \
feature/y                         ●──●──●
# Start a feature
git checkout develop
git checkout -b feature/AUTH-123-add-sso

# Complete a feature — merge back to develop
git checkout develop
git merge --no-ff feature/AUTH-123-add-sso
git branch -d feature/AUTH-123-add-sso

# Create a release branch
git checkout develop
git checkout -b release/v2.1.0

# Finalize release
git checkout main
git merge --no-ff release/v2.1.0
git tag -a v2.1.0 -m "Release v2.1.0"
git checkout develop
git merge --no-ff release/v2.1.0

# Hotfix from production
git checkout main
git checkout -b hotfix/SEC-101-patch-xss
# ... fix applied ...
git checkout main
git merge --no-ff hotfix/SEC-101-patch-xss
git tag -a v2.1.1 -m "Hotfix v2.1.1"
git checkout develop
git merge --no-ff hotfix/SEC-101-patch-xss

Read the full file on GitHub · 210 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 8d ago First seen · 210 lines · 52 tokens per session scan A e7517dcc0c71

Subscribe to this mod's changes

branching-strategy is a skill published in the GitHub repository VersoXBT/claude-initial-setup (4 stars, last pushed 4mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 52 tokens to every session and 1,535 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

Related

Other skills, from other repositories

commit-trailers

Structured commit trailers — adds Constraint, Rejected, Scope-risk, and Not-tested metadata to commit messages. Captures architectural decisions and known gaps in git history.

XeldarAlz/everything-claude-unity · 37 tokens

git-advanced-workflows

Master advanced Git workflows including rebasing, cherry-picking, bisect, worktrees, and reflog to maintain clean history and recover from any situation. Use when managing complex Git histories, collaborating on feature branches, or troubleshooting repository issues.

wshobson/agents · 54 tokens

gitlab-ops

Use this skill when performing VCS operations on GitLab or GitHub repositories — creating, updating, or closing issues and MRs, applying label taxonomy, running glab/gh CLI commands, or resolving project paths dynamically. Acts as the single source of truth for CLI command syntax and label conventions; consuming…

Kanevry/session-orchestrator · 174 tokens

spinout

Use when extracting a project into its own repo — a venture spinout (e.g. a product leaving its incubator repo) or a sanitized content-snapshot fork. Guided 5-step runbook: target sphere + path, confidentiality/sanitize check, copy + fresh git init, SNAPSHOT-FREEZE marker in the source repo, remotes + registration.…

Kanevry/session-orchestrator · 96 tokens

pdf

Read, create and manipulate PDF files — extract text and tables, merge, split, rotate, reorder and delete pages, read and fill AcroForm fields, add or strip metadata, encrypt and decrypt, and generate new PDFs from HTML or from scratch. Also covers rasterising pages to images so a PDF can actually be looked at, and…

smith-network-solutions/threadknot · 88 tokens

dedup

Dedupe-only pass for BASESHA..HEAD: remove duplicate code introduced by the diff or reuse existing shared utils; applies changes + commits.

besimple-oss/broccoli · 32 tokens