When multiple people collaborate on the same Git project, it is important to have a clear branching model in order to avoid a mess. Basically, a branching model clears up the following points:

• What branches exist?
• To which branches to commit?
• How and when to merge and delete branches?

There are many possible branching models, but a very popular one has been described by Vincent Driessen here.

The Model

Download the PDF version.

The main points of this model are the following:

• There are two persistent branches, the master branch and the develop branch.
• The master branch contains only releases. It is not touched until there is a release.
• The develop branch is used by the developers during development.
• However, the developers don’t commit directly to the develop branch, but they create a temporary feature branch for every feature that they work on.
• When a feature is completed, the corresponding feature branch is merged back into the develop branch, and the feature branch is deleted.
• When it’s time for a new release, a release branch is created from the develop branch.
• The release branch is used for dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s before the final release.
• When everything is ready, the release branch is merged into the master branch, and the release branch is deleted.

git-flow

git-flow is a collection of Git extensions that facilitate the application of the above branching model. It basically adds to git the flow command, and many sub-commands.

A very useful cheatsheet for the usage of git-flow exists here.