Branch and merge

How to create a new branch

Create a new branch (from the current HEAD commit) and switch to it:

git switch -c <branchname>

This is equivalent to:

git branch <branchname>
git switch <branchname>

Note

In git <v2.23 (not recommended):

git checkout -b <branchname>

How to merge a branch

To merge branch <branchname> into the currently checked-out branch:

git merge <branchname>

Alternately, you can merge branch <branchname> into <into-branchname>:

git merge <branchname> <into-branchname>

Note

If your branch can be merged without creating a merge commit, a fast-forward merge will be performed. If you don’t want a fast-forward merge, you can specify the --no-ff argument to git merge.