jzills Trunk-Based Branching Conventions
Branch Routing
| Branch type | Cut from | PR targets |
|---|---|---|
All branches (feature/*, fix/*, release/*, hotfix/*, etc.) |
trunk | trunk |
All work flows into a single trunk branch. Releases are cut as short-lived branches off trunk and PR back into trunk.
Resolving the Trunk Branch Name
Never hardcode main. Resolve dynamically — the trunk may be main, master, or a custom name:
gh repo view --json defaultBranchRef --jq '.defaultBranchRef.name'
Creating a Branch
trunk=$(gh repo view --json defaultBranchRef --jq '.defaultBranchRef.name')
git checkout "$trunk" && git pull origin "$trunk"
git checkout -b <new-branch>
git push -u origin <new-branch>
Detection Signal
This strategy was identified because git ls-remote --heads origin develop returned no output. If a develop branch is later added, switch to branching-strategy:gitflow.