Gitflow is a proven branching model originally developed by Vincent Driessen. It provides a robust framework for managing features, releases, and hotfixes in software projects. This guide shows you how to set up Gitflow system-wide on macOS.

What is Gitflow?

Gitflow defines a strict branching workflow with two main branches:

  • main (or master): Always contains production-ready code
  • develop: Integration branch for new features

Additionally, there are temporary branches for:

  • Feature branches: For new functionality (branched from develop)
  • Release branches: For release preparation (branched from develop)
  • Hotfix branches: For critical production fixes (branched from main)

Gitflow Cheatsheet: https://danielkummer.github.io/git-flow-cheatsheet/

Installing Gitflow on macOS

The AVH edition of Gitflow is the actively maintained community version with additional functionality and performance improvements over the original implementation.

Via Homebrew (recommended)

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brew install git-flow-avh

Verification

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git flow version

Using Gitflow in the Terminal

Initialize a Repository

Navigate to your Git repository and initialize Gitflow:

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cd /path/to/your/repo
git flow init -d
touch README.md
git add README.md
git commit -am"Initial commit"
git remote add origin https://github.com/OWNER/REPOSITORY.git
git push -u origin main
git checkout -b develop
git push -u origin develop

The -d flag accepts all default values (main as production branch, develop as development branch).

Please set the default branch to “develop” (e.g. within Settings of branch on github).

Feature Workflow

Create a new feature branch:

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git flow feature start amazing-feature

This automatically creates a feature/amazing-feature branch from the current develop branch.

Work on your feature and commit as usual:

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git add .
git commit -m "Add: Implement core functionality for amazing feature"

Publish the feature branch (for teamwork):

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git flow feature publish amazing-feature

Finish the feature by a PR or if no PR required:

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git flow feature finish amazing-feature

This merges the feature branch into develop and deletes the local feature branch.

Create a release

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git flow release start 1.2.0
git flow release publish 1.2.0

Please open a PR and merge changes and delete old branch or:

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git flow release finish 1.2.0

Afterwards, do

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git push origin main
git push origin develop  
git push origin --tags

Create a hotfix

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git flow hotfix start critical-fix
git flow hotfix publish critical-fix
git flow hotfix finish critical-fix

And push changes

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git push origin main develop --tags

Further Resources

Gitflow AVH Edition on GitHub:

https://github.com/petervanderdoes/gitflow-avh

Gitflow AVH Wiki:

https://github.com/petervanderdoes/gitflow-avh/wiki