Isolates release preparation work, enabling stabilization, bug fixes, and release preparation without disrupting ongoing development.

Refers to the practice of isolating release-related work in version control.

When preparing a software release, needing to isolate stabilization work from ongoing development.

Used in version control systems such as Git, SVN, during release engineering processes.

create release branch → stabilize code → merge release branch into main

• main branch
• develop branch
• feature branch
• hotfix branch
• release tag

• release branch
• release line

Merging unfinished features into release branch; forgetting to merge release branch back to main after release.

feature branch (for new features), hotfix branch (for urgent fixes), develop branch (ongoing integration).

Confusing release branch with feature branch may lead to premature releases; mixing hotfixes into release branch without proper testing.

• feature branch
• hotfix branch
• develop branch
• main branch
• release tag

A release branch is typically short-lived, created from a stable branch (e.g., develop or main) and merged back after release.

Signals that the team is stabilizing code for release, signaling stability to stakeholders.

A release branch is like a temporary staging area where code is polished before it’s shipped to production.

Release branches should be created from a stable branch (e.g., develop or main) and deleted after the release is tagged and merged back.

release tag