Trunk-based Development | Atlassian
Trunk-based development is a version control management practice where developers merge small, frequent updates to a core “trunk” or main branch. Since it streamlines merging and integration phases, it helps achieve CI/CD and increases software delivery and organizational performance. In the early days of software development, programmers didn’t have the luxury of modern version control systems. Rather, they developed two versions of their software concurrently as a means of tracking changes and reversing them if necessary. Over time, this process proved to be labor-intensive, costly, and inefficient. As version control systems matured, various development styles emerged, enabling programmers to find bugs more easily, code in parallel with their colleagues, and accelerate release cadence. Today, most programmers leverage one of two development models to deliver quality software -- Gitflow and trunk-based development. Gitflow, which was popularized first, is a stricter development model
Trunk-based Development | Atlassian Get it free Trunk-based development Learn why this version control management practice is common practice among DevOps teams. By Kev Zettler, thatgamecompany Lead full stack web developer Kev is a lead full stack web developer and serial entrepreneur with over a decade of experience building products and teams with agile methodologies. He is a passionate contributor, author, and educator on emerging open source technologies like DevOps, cryptocurrency, and VR/AR. In his free time, he participates in indie game development jams. Trunk-based development is a v
related reading
- Five-minute overview - Trunk Based Developmenttrunkbaseddevelopment.com
- A successful Git branching model >> nvie.comnvie.com
- Git at any scalecursor.com
- Learn how Git fits into an agile workflow | Atlassianatlassian.com
- Skiplevel | 30 Tech Terms Infographic (PDF) - finals3.amazonaws.com
- Always Be Shipping - Adam Drakeadamdrake.com
- Minions: Stripe’s one-shot, end-to-end coding agentsstripe.dev
- crawshaw - 2026-05-07crawshaw.io
- How Claude Code is built - by Gergely Orosznewsletter.pragmaticengineer.com
- Atlassian Engineering's handbook: a guide for autonomous teams - Inside Atlassianatlassian.com
- How to scale a large codebase - Vercelvercel.com
- Inside Stripe’s Engineering Culture: Part 2newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com