📦 Release Branching Strategy — Simple Git Example for Beginners

🎯 Use Case: You want to support two different versions of your web app — one for existing users (v1), and another for upcoming features (v2).
Release branching helps you develop and maintain both versions at the same time — safely and cleanly.

🔧 Project: myshop-demo (Online Store)

🛒 Scenario:

• Version 1 (release/v1) is live, stable, and used by customers.
• Version 2 (release/v2) is under development with a new UI.

Your task:

• Add a new UI message in v2
• Apply a hotfix in v1
• Without affecting each other

🧪 Let’s Do It — Step-by-Step in Git

✅ Step 1: Initialize the Project (if not already)

mkdir myshop-demo
cd myshop-demo
git init
echo "<h1>Welcome to MyShop</h1>" > index.html
git add .
git commit -m "Initial MyShop homepage"

✅ Step 2: Create Two Release Branches

# Simulate production branch for v1
git checkout -b release/v1

# Push if needed
git push origin release/v1  # Optional

# Create v2 from v1
git checkout -b release/v2

✅ Step 3: Add New Feature in v2

echo "<p>🎉 New UI coming soon in v2!</p>" >> index.html
git commit -am "Add teaser for new UI in v2"

✅ You’ve added a new feature in v2, safely isolated from v1.

✅ Step 4: Switch to v1 and Apply Hotfix

git checkout release/v1
echo "<!-- Fixed product price rounding issue -->" >> index.html
git commit -am "Hotfix: correct price rounding logic"

✅ You’ve fixed a bug in v1 without affecting v2's progress.

🔍 What Just Happened?

🧠 Real-World Example

Imagine you're a SaaS company:

• Team A patches a bug on release/v1 for current customers.
• Team B develops a new UI in release/v2.

🧠 Both teams work in parallel — no conflicts, no waiting.

📌 Why Use Release Branching?

🧼 Bonus Tip: Merge v1 Hotfix into v2

You may want to apply the same hotfix to v2:

git checkout release/v2
git merge release/v1

✅ Now release/v2 includes the v1 fix too.

🧪 Summary

• release/v1 = Stable production branch with hotfixes
• release/v2 = New feature development
• You managed both versions without interfering

✅ You’re Now One Step Closer to Git Mastery!

Drop a ❤️ or 🦄 if this helped you.

👉 Comment below — I’d love to help you practice!

Please have a look Trunk Based Development Branching Strategy