The Longer a Branch Lives, the Harder It Gets

Ever come back to a branch you cut a week ago to find it now disagrees with main in surprising ways? While you were elsewhere, main kept moving. The longer a branch lives, the wider that gap quietly grows.

That's why every common flow points to the same prescription. GitHub Flow deletes each branch once it is merged, so branches are meant to be short. Trunk-Based goes further, using feature flags to make branch lifetimes nearly zero. The difference is only how strictly each model enforces it.

The biggest win isn't choosing the perfect flow. It's not letting branches live too long. The flows you learned are tools; the real principle behind them is "return your branch to main quickly."