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Software Engineering vocabulary · Version Control

Feature branch

Meaning in software engineering, with examples

nounCommon term

In software engineering, feature branch means: A separate branch created to work on one feature or fix, so the work can be developed and reviewed without affecting the main branch.

In Turkish: özellik dalı, feature branch

How it is used

Teams often name them after the ticket, such as feature/PAY-142-refund. A feature branch should be short-lived, because long-lived branches cause painful merge conflicts. Once the pull request is merged, the branch is usually deleted.

Example sentences

  1. Create a feature branch from main and name it after the Jira ticket.

  2. This feature branch has been open for six weeks; it's going to be hard to merge.

Common collocations

  • create a feature branch
  • short-lived feature branch
  • merge the feature branch
  • delete the feature branch
  • branchA separate line of development in a repository, where you can work on changes without affecting the main code until you are ready to merge.
  • main branchThe central branch of a repository that holds the official, up-to-date version of the code. Other branches are created from it and merged back into it.
  • pull requestA request to merge your code changes from one branch into another, so that teammates can review and discuss them first.
  • merge conflictA situation where Git cannot combine two branches automatically because both changed the same lines, so a person has to choose the right version.

More terms: Version Control

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