managing-git-workflows

Choose trunk-based development for high-velocity teams with strong CI/CD and 80%+ test coverage, GitHub Flow for web apps with continuous deployment and teams of 2-20, and GitFlow when supporting multiple production versions or scheduled releases with formal QA cycles.

Install husky, lint-staged, @commitlint/cli, and @commitlint/config-conventional as dev dependencies. Run npx husky init, then add a commit-msg hook running commitlint --edit and a pre-commit hook running lint-staged.

Merge commits preserve complete history and suit shared feature branches. Squash and merge combines commits into one for a clean main history. Rebase creates linear history without merge commits but must never be used on public branches like main.

Nx is best for TypeScript/JavaScript monorepos needing dependency graph analysis and affected commands. Turborepo suits Next.js/React applications with fast incremental builds, remote caching, and simpler configuration.

Hooks commonly fail because they lack executable permissions or Husky was not initialized. Run chmod +x on the hook files, verify git config core.hooksPath points to .husky, and reinstall with npx husky init if needed.

Never rebase public branches like main or develop, or commits already pushed and used by others. Rebasing rewrites history, which breaks collaborators' local repositories and can cause lost work.