Foundation project

Project: ship a feature on a branch

Lesson 12 of 20 · 14 min · Module 3: Branches

Time to put the local workflow together, the way you will use it every day: a branch for the feature, small commits, a merge, and a tidy finish.

Start this lesson →

Free. No installation: you write and run the code in your browser, and it is checked automatically.

By the end, you’ll be able to…

Plan a feature as a branch with focused commits
Check each commit before you make it
Merge and clean up

The idea

Plan first. A new projects page is one feature, so it gets one branch. It has two parts, the page and the menu entry, so it gets two commits. When it is done, merge it into main and delete the branch. Use git status and git diff along the way to check each step.

git switch -c projects-page
git add projects.md
git commit -m "Add a projects page"
git switch main
git merge projects-page

01Plan the branch and the commits

Name the branch after the feature, such as projects-page. Decide what each commit will contain before you start: here, one commit for the page and one for the menu entry.

02Check before every commit

git diff shows what you changed; git status shows what is staged. git commit -am stages and commits every change to tracked files in one step, but it never adds new files.

git switch -c projects-page
echo "Projects" >> menu.txt
git diff

Output

Switched to a new branch 'projects-page'
diff --git a/menu.txt b/menu.txt
index 19036ac..f27620c 100644
--- a/menu.txt
+++ b/menu.txt
@@ -1,2 +1,3 @@
 Home
 About
+Projects

03Merge and tidy up

Back on main, merge the branch. Because main has not moved, it is a fast-forward. Then delete the branch: its commits are now part of main.

git commit -am "Link the projects page from the menu"
git switch main
git merge projects-page

Output

[projects-page ac8a404] Link the projects page from the menu
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
Switched to branch 'main'
Updating 4abfd2a..ac8a404
Fast-forward
 menu.txt | 1 +
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)

Your project brief

Build a projects page on a branch named projects-page. Commit projects.md, starting with the heading # Projects and with at least one more line, as one commit. Add Projects as the last line of menu.txt in a second commit. Merge the branch into main, delete it, and finish on a clean main.

What the checks look for

main has projects.md with a Projects heading
The menu on main ends with Projects
The page and the menu entry are separate commits
The work happened on projects-page and was merged into main
The branch is gone and main is clean

Try it in the editor →

Take this with you

Branch, commit in small steps, merge, delete: the everyday Git workflow.

Go a little further

Before merging, run git log --oneline main..projects-page to list exactly the commits the merge will bring in.