Branchcentric

Branchcentric refers to a design philosophy or approach where a central branch of a version control system, typically named 'main' or 'master', is treated as the primary source of truth for stable, deployable code. This approach emphasizes the importance of keeping this central branch clean and production-ready at all times. New features, bug fixes, and experiments are developed in separate, short-lived branches that diverge from the central branch. Once development on a feature or fix is complete and thoroughly tested, it is merged back into the central branch. This methodology aims to minimize merge conflicts and ensure that the main branch always represents a stable state. The core idea is to isolate ongoing work from the production code, making integration and deployment processes more predictable and less risky. This contrasts with workflows where developers might commit directly to the main branch or where the main branch is frequently updated with unfinished work. Branchcentric workflows often involve pull requests or merge requests for code review and automated testing before integration into the main branch.