git-flow

About

git-flow are a set of git extensions to provide high-level repository operations for Vincent Driessen's branching model. more

This cheatsheet shows the basic usage and effect of git-flow operations

Basic tips

Git flow provides excellent command line help and output. Read it carefully to see what's happening...
The macOS/Windows Client Sourcetree is an excellent git gui and provides git-flow support
Git-flow is a merge based solution. It doesn't rebase feature branches.

Setup

You need a working git installation as prerequisite.
Git flow works on macOS, Linux and Windows

macOS

Homebrew

$ brew install git-flow-avh

Macports

$ port install git-flow-avh

Linux

$ apt-get install git-flow

Windows (Cygwin)

$ wget -q -O - --no-check-certificate https://raw.github.com/petervanderdoes/gitflow-avh/develop/contrib/gitflow-installer.sh install stable | bash

You need wget and util-linux to install git-flow.

For detailed git flow installation instructions please visit the git flow wiki.

install git-flow

Getting started

Git flow needs to be initialized in order to customize your project setup.

Initialize

Start using git-flow by initializing it inside an existing git repository:

git flow init

You'll have to answer a few questions regarding the naming conventions for your branches.
It's recommended to use the default values.

Features

Develop new features for upcoming releases
Typically exist in developers repos only

Start a new feature

Development of new features starting from the 'develop' branch.

Start developing a new feature with

git flow feature start MYFEATURE

This action creates a new feature branch based on 'develop' and switches to it

Finish up a feature

Finish the development of a feature. This action performs the following

Merges MYFEATURE into 'develop'
Removes the feature branch
Switches back to 'develop' branch

git flow feature finish MYFEATURE

Publish a feature

Are you developing a feature in collaboration?
Publish a feature to the remote server so it can be used by other users.

git flow feature publish MYFEATURE

Getting a published feature

Get a feature published by another user.

git flow feature pull origin MYFEATURE

You can track a feature on origin by using

git flow feature track MYFEATURE

Make a release

Support preparation of a new production release
Allow for minor bug fixes and preparing meta-data for a release

Start a release

To start a release, use the git flow release command. It creates a release branch created from the 'develop' branch.

git flow release start RELEASE [BASE]

You can optionally supply a [BASE] commit sha-1 hash to start the release from. The commit must be on the 'develop' branch.

It's wise to publish the release branch after creating it to allow release commits by other developers. Do it similar to feature publishing with the command:

git flow release publish RELEASE

(You can track a remote release with the
git flow release track RELEASE command)

Finish up a release

Finishing a release is one of the big steps in git branching. It performs several actions:

Merges the release branch back into 'master'
Tags the release with its name
Back-merges the release into 'develop'
Removes the release branch

git flow release finish RELEASE

Don't forget to push your tags with git push origin --tags

Hotfixes

Hotfixes arise from the necessity to act immediately upon an undesired state of a live production version
May be branched off from the corresponding tag on the master branch that marks the production version.

git flow hotfix start

Like the other git flow commands, a hotfix is started with

git flow hotfix start VERSION [BASENAME]

The version argument hereby marks the new hotfix release name. Optionally you can specify a basename to start from.

Finish a hotfix

By finishing a hotfix it gets merged back into develop and master. Additionally the master merge is tagged with the hotfix version.

git flow hotfix finish VERSION

Commands

git-flow commands

Backlog

Not all available commands are covered here, only the most important ones
You can still use git and all its commands normally as you know them, git flow is only a tooling collection
The 'support' feature is still beta, using it is not advised
If you'd like to supply translations I'd be happy to integrate them