Agile Version Control

The goal is to enable you to be more agile, i.e., to improve your ability to change and adjust.

Here’s what I think:

Mainline and CI

Branches and merging
  • Beware of feature branches, and kill them as soon as you can if you do use them. (One tip: feature toggle)
  • Branches: Merge from mainline every day if you have them.
  • Good naming goes for build code and infrastructure, too, so I’d prefer branch names like mainline, release, featureA, fixB
  • Limit branches agressively – they represent more work in progress (and you want less work in progress) including risk of big merges
  • Agile version control for multiple teams
    Illustration from Henrik's article

    Merging: merge down, copy up – always accept stabilizing changes, never impose destabilizing changes.

Inspiration:

Martin Fowler: articles on continuous integration

Henrik Kniberg: Agile version control with multiple teams

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