Branching Mental Model

Branching mental model

A branch is a movable label that points to a commit. When you commit on a branch, the label moves forward. Branches are cheap, fast, and central to safe Git work.

git branch
git log --oneline --decorate --graph --all

* d4e5f6a (HEAD -> main) Add focused change
* a1b2c3d Create project baseline

The current branch is the one that receives new commits. Git stores this through HEAD, which usually points at a branch name.

Why branches help

• Keep unfinished work away from the stable branch.
• Try multiple ideas independently.
• Prepare focused pull requests for review.
• Make rollback easier when an experiment fails.

Think of main as the shared stable line. Create a feature branch when you start a change, commit there, and merge it back when the work is reviewed and ready.