git-flow

A collection of Git extensions to provide high-level repository operations for Vincent Driessen's branching model.

Getting started

For the best introduction to get started with git flow, please read Jeff Kreeftmeijer's blog post:

http://jeffkreeftmeijer.com/2010/why-arent-you-using-git-flow/

Or have a look at one of these screen casts:

• How to use a scalable Git branching model called git-flow (by Build a Module)
• A short introduction to git-flow (by Mark Derricutt)
• On the path with git-flow (by Dave Bock)

Installing git-flow

See the Wiki for up-to-date Installation Instructions.

Integration with your shell

For those who use the Bash or ZSH shell, please check out the excellent work on the git-flow-completion project by bobthecow. It offers tab-completion for all git-flow subcommands and branch names.

FAQ

See the FAQ section of the project Wiki.

Please help out

This project is still under development. Feedback and suggestions are very welcome and I encourage you to use the Issues list on Github to provide that feedback.

Feel free to fork this repo and to commit your additions. For a list of all contributors, please see the AUTHORS file.

Any questions, tips, or general discussion can be posted to our Google group: http://groups.google.com/group/gitflow-users

Contributing

Fork the repository. Then, run:

git clone --recursive git@github.com:<username>/gitflow.git
cd gitflow
git branch master origin/master
git flow init -d
git flow feature start <your feature>

Then, do work and commit your changes. Hint: export PATH=`pwd`:$PATH from within the gitflow directory makes sure you're using the version of gitflow you're currently developing.

git flow feature publish <your feature>

When done, open a pull request to your feature branch.

License terms

git-flow is published under the liberal terms of the BSD License, see the LICENSE file. Although the BSD License does not require you to share any modifications you make to the source code, you are very much encouraged and invited to contribute back your modifications to the community, preferably in a Github fork, of course.

Initialization

To initialize a new repo with the basic branch structure, use:

	git flow init [-d]

This will then interactively prompt you with some questions on which branches you would like to use as development and production branches, and how you would like your prefixes be named. You may simply press Return on any of those questions to accept the (sane) default suggestions.

The -d flag will accept all defaults.

Creating feature/release/hotfix/support branches

• To list/start/finish feature branches, use:

    git flow feature
    git flow feature start <name> [<base>]
    git flow feature finish <name>
  

  For feature branches, the <base> arg must be a commit on develop.

• To push/pull a feature branch to the remote repository, use:

    git flow feature publish <name>
      git flow feature pull <remote> <name>
  

• To list/start/finish release branches, use:

    git flow release
    git flow release start <release> [<base>]
    git flow release finish <release>
  

  For release branches, the <base> arg must be a commit on develop.

• To list/start/finish hotfix branches, use:

    git flow hotfix
    git flow hotfix start <release> [<base>]
    git flow hotfix finish <release>
  

  For hotfix branches, the <base> arg must be a commit on master.

• To list/start support branches, use:

    git flow support
    git flow support start <release> <base>
  

  For support branches, the <base> arg must be a commit on master.

Showing your appreciation

A few people already requested it, so now it's here: a Flattr button.

Of course, the best way to show your appreciation for the original blog post or the git-flow tool itself remains contributing to the community. If you'd like to show your appreciation in another way, however, consider Flattr'ing me: