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Trunk-based development

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Also called Mainline development, commit-to-main

What is Trunk-based development?

A workflow where everyone integrates changes into the main branch frequently, usually with very short-lived branches or none at all.

Trunk-based development keeps the main line of code moving forward continuously. The team avoids long-lived branches so changes stay small, merge conflicts stay lower, and integration problems appear earlier.

How it relates to Orbit

Sandbox sessions promote into your default branch through a throwaway worktree, which keeps agent work short-lived and close to the trunk. See Sandbox for details.

When you would use it

You use trunk-based development when you want faster integration and less branch drift in a shared codebase.

Common operations

  • Frequent merges into main
  • Keeping branches short-lived
  • Reducing integration risk

Related terms

Where this is taught

No learning path uses this term yet. Browse the Learning Atlas for guided sequences through related ideas.