Git workflow common practices to manage project code the better way

What’s GIT ? In very simple terms Git is source code management & collaboration software. It help us keep track of different branches, and different commits under any branch over the time. For more theoretical detail about GIT, refer Learn Git with Bitbucket Cloud

This is a very quick guide of project source code workflow management.

Master Branch :

master branch is a default branch. It should have only deployment ready, all tested and stable version of code.

Development Branch :

The development branch should be forked from master branch and should always merge in master branch. This branch should be used to keep all the features currently in testing.

Feature Branches :

When working on a new feature developers(s) should work on specific feature branch and update all code only there. The feature branch name should be descriptive and easy to understand so over the long course of project development, one can refer for which feature this branch was created ex: job-listing-module.
So the developers should commit feature related commits on particular feature branch and once the branch is stable and tested, it can be merged with development branch.

Hotfix Branch :

There comes a situation when some features were already merged in development branch and some bug is identified in master branch. In such case a new hotfix branch should be forked from main branch and after updating fixes should be merged with the main branch.

Release Branch :

If some features are ready to release, a new branch release can be forked from development branch. This branch then should be deployed to staging server for further testing. Once all issues are rectified and all test cases passed, this branch can be merger to master branch.