The main-is-always-deployable rule is the part teams usually skip. Short-lived branches and a quick review keep it honest. If a branch lives for days, the merge pain usually outweighs any benefit from the extra work in progress.
Absolutely, Rishabh. Keeping main deployable is the commitment behind the simplicity. Small PRs and timely reviews help, but reliable CI and required checks are what make that commitment enforceable. For bigger features, I’d rather split the work and use feature flags than let a branch drift for days.
In your experience, what tends to keep branches open longer, large changes or review delays?
In my experience, review delays keep branches open longer. A large change can be split or put behind a flag, but a branch waiting for review goes stale and picks up conflicts. A small PR with a clear review window usually merges faster than a perfect one that waits.
Rishabh Mishra
Cloud FullStack Developer & Design Engineer.
The main-is-always-deployable rule is the part teams usually skip. Short-lived branches and a quick review keep it honest. If a branch lives for days, the merge pain usually outweighs any benefit from the extra work in progress.