What is trunk-based development?
Length:
4 min
Published:
June 9, 2026
What trunk-based development means
Trunk-based development is a way of organizing how a team uses Git. Everyone commits to a single shared branch, usually called main or trunk, in small changes several times a day. Instead of building a feature on a separate branch for two weeks and then merging a giant pull request, you integrate tiny pieces continuously and keep the trunk always releasable.
Short-lived branches are still fine. The rule is that a branch lives for hours or a day or two, not weeks. The longer a branch diverges from the trunk, the harder and riskier the eventual merge becomes.
In plain words
Think of the trunk as a shared document everyone edits together. If each person works on their own private copy for a month, merging everyone's versions back into one becomes a nightmare. If everyone saves small edits to the shared document many times a day, conflicts are tiny and easy to sort out. That is the whole idea: merge often so merging never hurts.
Why teams use it
- Fewer painful merges. Small, frequent integrations mean conflicts are small too. The dreaded "merge week" disappears.
- It enables real CI/CD. Continuous integration assumes everyone integrates continuously. Trunk-based development is the branching model that makes that literal.
- Faster feedback. Because changes hit the shared branch quickly, problems surface within hours instead of weeks, when they are cheap to fix.
- Clearer code ownership. With one trunk and no stale branches, everyone works against the same recent state of the code.
Common pitfalls
- Shipping unfinished work. Committing often to main means half-built features reach the shared branch. Hide them behind feature flags so they stay invisible to users until ready.
- Weak test coverage. Trunk-based development without solid automated tests is dangerous, because there is no safety net catching a broken commit before it spreads.
- Branches that quietly grow long. "Short-lived" slips easily. If a branch is open for a week, you are back to the old model with extra ceremony.
- Skipping review. Speed should not mean no review. Use fast pull requests or pair programming so changes still get a second pair of eyes.
Related articles:
- What is CI/CD? - The automated path to production that trunk-based development is built to feed.
- What are feature flags? - How to merge unfinished work safely by hiding it from users.
- What is a monorepo? - Keeping many projects in one repository, a common companion to a shared trunk.
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