Key Takeaways

• ⛔ The "Must Avoid" Strategy Direct deployment from feature branches to production is strongly discouraged, even for small startups. While some early-stage companies might use this approach, it leads to poor version control, accidental feature reversals, and tracking difficulties.

• ✅ The GitHub Flow Approach A recommended strategy for small teams with quick development cycles. It centers around a main/master branch as the sole source for production deployments, with feature branches merging back after thorough testing. This approach requires maintaining an unblocked main branch and high confidence in code quality.

• 🔄 The Integration Branch Evolution Building on the previous strategy, this approach introduces temporary integration branches where multiple features can be combined and tested together before merging into the main. While it offers better feature coordination, it requires careful management of branch lifecycles and dependencies.

• 🌳 The Two-Branch Strategy The most comprehensive approach, featuring two long-living branches (main and develop) plus temporary branches for features and releases. This strategy excels at handling multiple production versions and is particularly useful for teams serving different customer versions or conducting A/B testing.

• ⚡ Pipeline Integration Best Practices Success depends on aligning your CI/CD pipeline with your chosen branching strategy. This includes setting up preview environments, automated builds, proper environment mapping, and implementing security and quality checks at appropriate stages.These strategies have been demonstrated live using the Devtron platform, showing how modern tools can help implement these patterns effectively while maintaining code quality and deployment stability.