Do you need to branch if you're the only one working on a project?
Yesterday, I saw a tweet where the writer said they were “falling into the branch, pull request, and merge after actions pass I use at work even though I'm the only one working on it”.
After reading this, my question is, "Should you, or do you need to, create branches if you're the only person working on a project?".
These days, I use trunk-based development as much as possible, so I hardly ever create new branches, whether working on a project myself or with a team.
I used to use Git Flow and create branches for every new feature and bug fix, but I remember, whilst demonstrating two work-in-progress features to a client, switching between the different branches caused my local site to break. Whilst it wasn’t a major issue, it wouldn't have seemed professional.
In a team environment, feature branches are intended to keep different changes and different people's work separate.
But is this needed if you’re the only in the team?
Assumingly, you're only working on one change at a time, so what's the benefit of creating a separate branch?
If you need to switch to a different task, another approach could be to revert your work-in-progress commits, move them onto another local branch temporarily, or wrap them within a feature flag so that the changes are committed but not active.
The other part of the tweet said, “I like the little integrations to make sure the tests pass”.
I’m comfortable working on a single branch and committing and pushing small changes often.
My CI pipelines run for every change that I push, and if one fails, I’ll either push a small fix to get it passing again or revert the failing change and investigate further.
For me, working on a single branch keeps my workflow simple and lean, allowing me to focus on the changes and the tasks that I need to work on and not worry about which branch I’m working on.
- Oliver
