Branching

In this section you will see how you can create an alternative commit history in a repository by creating a new branch from an existing branch, also known as branching off from the existing branch. You may, for example, find branching useful when:

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You and your team of coworkers save your ongoing work on models and auxiliary data files on a branch private to the team, and then publish the finished work on a branch shared with your organization. Perhaps there are multiple teams publishing to this latter branch.

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You start a project involving one or more models and auxiliary data files already present in the database, but you are uncertain what the end result is going to be. Perhaps the modifications you plan to make will result in new versions of the existing models, or perhaps you want to create entirely new models. Perhaps you decide to discard the modifications altogether. By branching, you can postpone these decisions until the project is finished.

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You want to experiment with a single model in a way that is hidden from other users. You therefore forgo the more lightweight, and recommended, way of Saving Drafts of Models — opting to create a branch that uses a permission template,


	Prefer Repositories over Branches if you want to create independent silos of models and auxiliary data files.

In this section:

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The Branch as a Sequence of Commits

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Creating a New Branch