GitFlow: what is difference between release and master branches?

Question

I\'ve just took a look on this gitflow cheat sheet. I don\'t understand the release branch.

Could anybody tell me the difference between release

Answer 1

Once all the features you want to have in your release are in develop, instead of "locking" develop to any new commit, you create the relase branch that will contains all the feature expected in your next release (and not in master since your whole release should be tested and would probably have some bugfix...).

• In this branch you have only bug fixes, documentation etc... but no new feature
• your develop branch is not locked up, so new features for the next release can still be commited/push on develop and tested.
• release branch is perfect to be deployed on staging/pre-prod environment and let QA test your release.
• Once release branch is stable, you can merge it into master and go to prod. Master should always be stable and steady (if not you make hotfix).

You can have a look at these links for further explanations:

https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/comparing-workflows/gitflow-workflow http://nvie.com/posts/a-successful-git-branching-model/#feature-branches