A Comprehensive Git Branch Management Model for Dual‑Mode Development in Traditional Enterprises

Traditional enterprises increasingly face "dual‑mode" development, where classic waterfall projects must coexist with fast‑track agile iterations, making standard Git branching unsuitable for their large, heterogeneous codebases.

The article reviews common Git branching strategies such as Git flow, Github flow and trunk‑based development, outlining their long‑lived and short‑lived branches and their respective strengths and weaknesses.

Based on this analysis, a full‑scenario branch model is proposed. It defines three permanent branches— Master (the production baseline), Dev (shared development space) and Test (functional testing)—and three categories of short‑lived branches: feature branches, release branches (including Rel ) and hot‑fix branches.

For waterfall‑type projects, developers work on the Dev branch; when a feature is ready for testing, a feature branch is created from Master, code is cherry‑picked from Dev, and a pull request moves it to Test. After validation, the feature branch is merged into a release branch for production deployment.

For iterative, fast‑turnaround scenarios, developers directly create feature branches from the latest production code, complete development, and then merge into Test and subsequently into a release branch for rapid deployment.

The model introduces "branch alignment" to ensure that any commit added to a source branch is merged into the target branch before production, preventing untested code from being released.

Strict permission controls and multi‑level pull‑request reviews are enforced: only Dev and feature branches allow direct pushes, while Test, Release and Master require reviewed pull requests, guaranteeing code safety and traceability.

Critical configuration files are stored in a separate repository and automatically replaced during build, ensuring that sensitive files are never inadvertently promoted to production while supporting one‑click multi‑environment releases.

Advantages of the full‑scenario model include support for dual‑mode development, seamless large‑team collaboration, reduced long‑term branch conflicts, simplified dependency management, and accelerated, safe releases. The approach has been successfully applied in the Agricultural Bank C3 credit‑management system.

Following the technical discussion, the article promotes a DevOps+LIVE technical livestream where experts will dissect the 2018 Global DevOps State of the Union report. The livestream, scheduled for 26 September 2018 at 20:00, features speakers Zhang Le and Liu Zheng, with QR codes provided for registration and group chat access.