GIT BRANCHING STRATEGY
For enterprise Salesforce users looking to leverage the advantages inherent in a distributed version control system, there is no better choice than Git. Git provides a powerful suite of tools, plugins, and utilities to monitor, secure, and control data from a centralized repository. While there are many possible use cases for Git, the most common is its role in managing Salesforce releases, dataset backups, and security safeguards. As such, a successful implementation of Git in this environment requires a sophisticated branching strategy with the appropriate level of automation and control. While there are a number of existing branching strategies, it is important to evaluate and select the one which best suits an organization’s specific needs. Fundamentally, the goal with Git branching is to ensure that any code changes can be isolated and tracked, and that any unexpected errors or impacts can be quickly pinpointed and rolled back. Fortunately, certain best practices and principles can be leveraged to ensure a successful implementation. A useful starting point is the trunk-based development strategy advocated by the GitFlow methodology. A "trunk" in this situation is a single, active version of project code which is always used for development; any changes to the trunk are rolled to production only when a branch build is queued. By adopting this method, Salesforce teams can take advantage of automated testing and predictable deployments. One of the main advantages of this approach is that all deployment-related changes are tested in a single trunk instance before rolling it out into production. Furthermore, trunk-based development enhances security by ensuring that only production-ready code is deployed. This gives users a reliable and secure development workflow which is resilient to unexpected changes. Additionally, changes can be implemented more quickly and standardized; this reduces the risk of introducing regressions or breaking existing repositories. The feature branch strategy is another popular option which is useful for managing Salesforce security, backup, and release activities. This approach involves creating a separate branch for each new feature or bugfix being implemented. Each branch is assigned unique version control identifiers and tracked separately through the development cycle. This approach allows for more frequent, safe, and independent development iterations. However, it requires a greater amount of time and effort to manage. As a result, this methodology is often used in combination with the trunk-based strategy above. Ultimately, the best Git branching strategy for your organization will depend on a number of factors—including the complexity of the project, the team size, and the workload. However, utilizing the approaches above should provide a solid foundation for any enterprise Salesforce user evolving the team’s release management, data backup and recovery, and security solutions.
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