Branch Naming Conventions

Independent of the used branching model these are generally useful guidelines:

  1. use dashes to separate words in branch names

    this gives you the best readability

    examples:

    • prepare-for-paper-x
    • issue-426
    • ui-cli-output

  2. use grouping tokens as prefixes separated with a slash

    • topic/* feature or feature set
    • release/* prepare release
    • hotfix/* resolves an issue
    • wip/* work in progress

    examples:

    • topic/feature-name
    • hotfix/42687
    • release/1.6.0
    • wip/trying-feature-name

    you can also combine these prefixes:

    • hotfix/42687/buggy-thing
    • topic/ui/cli/feature-name
    • wip/topic/feature-name

    having these slash-separated prefixes helps with some git commands, e.g.:

    $ git branch --list 'topic/*'
topic/feature-foo
topic/feature-bar

  3. be consistent

  4. don’t fear renaming

    Most branches are essentially temporary names attached to commits. Don’t fear renaming them.

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