GitFlow is another well-known elaborate branching scheme that can deal with almost any situation that might arise when working with software. GitFlow describes creating a branch, Develop, of the master whenever you start work on a new version. Develop is the integration branch where you combine new features and do integration testing. It should only contain work that you believe is ready to be released.

From Develop, you create one or more feature branches where you start working on new features. Only when a feature is done do you merge that branch back to the Develop branch.

When you want to release a new version of your application, you create a release branch of the Develop branch. On the code on this branch, you perform final testing and perform one or more bugfixes if needed. When you are satisfied with the quality of the code, you merge this branch to the master and tag the version. You also merge these bugfixes back to Develop, so they will also be incorporated in new developments. This flow is visible in the following diagram:

If there is ever a critical bug that you need to ship as fast as possible or you want to do a hotfix, for this is also possible. In that case, you create a new branch of the master, where you fix the bug. After testing, you merge this branch to both master and developer—just as you would with a release branch.