Git integration branch workflow

Problem

If a ticket has many subtasks, how can we ensure PR’s (pull requests) don’t get large and hard to review?

Use the Git integration branch workflow.

Given parent ticket JIRA-123, the developer would create an integration branch from latest master:

git checkout master && git pull
git checkout -b integration/JIRA-123

For each subtask, the developer would branch off the integration branch:

git checkout integration/JIRA-123
git checkout -b JIRA-456

When the subtask is ready for code review, the developer would open a PR to merge the subtask branch into the integration branch.

Merging the subtask PR is effectively doing:

git checkout integration/JIRA-123
git merge JIRA-456

When all subtasks are done, the developer opens a PR to merge the integration branch into master branch.

Merging the integration PR is effectively doing:

git checkout master
git merge integration/JIRA-123

The integration branch workflow is useful when a ticket has many subtasks
The integration branch workflow encourages atomic PR’s
One should not commit directly to the integration branch
It’s good practice to re-review the integration branch PR
QA and other expensive workflows can be skipped for subtask branches (except for story bugs)