4. Branching

Branches are cheap pointers to commits — creating one is instant.

# Create and switch
git branch feature/login           # create
git switch feature/login           # switch (preferred over checkout)
git switch -c feature/login        # create + switch in one step

# List
git branch                         # local branches
git branch -a                      # local + remote
git branch -v                      # with last commit

# Delete
git branch -d feature/login        # safe delete (won't delete unmerged)
git branch -D feature/login        # force delete

# Rename
git branch -m old-name new-name

# See which branches are merged into main
git branch --merged main
git branch --no-merged main

Branch naming conventions

Pattern	Example
Feature	feature/user-auth
Bug fix	fix/null-pointer-cart
Hotfix	hotfix/v2.1.1-payment
Release	release/2.1.0

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