Trunk-Based Development
Updated 2026-08-10
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
A software engineering practice in which developers commit to a single shared trunk branch and integrate their work frequently, rather than maintaining long-lived feature branches. Its core proposition is that frequent integration keeps divergence small, so conflicts are resolved while they are still cheap and defects surface early instead of at a painful merge. The qualifier is that the trunk must be protected by continuous integration and feature flags, otherwise the speed becomes chaos.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Trunk setup: establish one shared mainline branch that every developer integrates their work into. - Small commits: merge changes frequently in small increments instead of large batches. - Quality gate: rely on continuous integration and automated quality checks to protect the trunk.
Anchor fast decisions
Branches that live for weeks accumulate independent changes to the same code, so the eventual merge must reconcile work that has already diverged. Integrating in small increments keeps the divergence near zero, which turns merging into a routine step, and continuous integration catches breakage at the moment it enters rather than at the end.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
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Source support: Explicit
- en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branching_(version_controlverified
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