What is Trunk Based Development?

In software development, Trunk based development is a version control management technique or practice where developers from various organizations merge small, regular updates to a base code.

  • It is a common practice among DevOps teams and part of DevOps lifecycle since it streamlines merging and integration phases. Copies made from the source code is called branches.
  • It is considered as an branching model. In fact, trunk-based development is a required practice of CI/CD. As codebase complexity and team size grow, trunk-based development helps us to keep production releases flowing and here errors are addressed quickly and remediated before they go live.

Trunk-Based Development in Software Development

In earlier days of software development, programmers didn’t have the richness of modern version control systems but they developed two versions of their software concurrently as it means of monitoring small changes and backing them if possible and only in necessary conditions. As time increases it has become more costly, and inefficient.

Trunk Based Development

At present various version control systems are developed and managed. It made it more mature, and various departments have merged which enables programmers to find bugs or errors more easily. As of today most developers hold one of the two development models in order to deliver quality software which is Git flow and trunk-based development. Trunk-based development is an additional open model since all developers have easier access to the main code which also enables teams to implement CI/CD and so on.

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What is Trunk Based Development?

In software development, Trunk based development is a version control management technique or practice where developers from various organizations merge small, regular updates to a base code....

Importance of Trunk-Based Development

Faster Time to Market: By promoting simple terms, frequent contributions and continuous integration, trunk-based development speeds up delivery. Reduced Integration Problems: Early problem detection and resolution are achieved by continuous integration, and working directly on the main branch reduces conflicts. Enhanced Cooperation: By collaborating on the main root, solitary work on different branches is avoided and communication and information sharing are encouraged. Simpler Code Reviews: Code reviews are easier to manage when changes are smaller and more frequent, which allows for quicker iterations and quicker feedback. Enhanced Transparency: The main branch offers a transparent picture of the project’s status and the present state of the codebase since it acts as a single source of truth. Adaptability to Change: Trunk-Based Development facilitates quick pivots, responsiveness to changing requirements, and effective feedback assimilation, all of which help to increase adaptability to change....

Git flow vs. Trunk-Based Development

Git Flow/ Feature Branch vs Trunk Based Development...

Benefits of using Trunk-based development

Reduced complexity is a major emphasis of trunk-based software design. Trunk based development is a required practice for continuous integration. Here if the build and test processes are automated then developers work on isolated, lengthy feature branches that are infrequently integrated into a shared branch, continuous integration is not living up to its potential....

Best practices of Trunk based development

The principle behind trunk-based development is to assimilate every change as soon as possible in version control. It ensures the teams to release code quickly and consistently. The following is a list of exercises and practices that will help will refine your teams cadence and develop an optimized release schedule. In Software Development best practices for trunk-based development include the following steps as mentioned here....

Future Trends in Trunk-Based Development

Practices for Collaborative Coding: Ongoing development of more cooperative coding techniques, maybe including functionalities like in-development real-time pair programming support. Integration of Security: Direct integration of security measures with the TBD workflow guarantees smooth security scans and checks as part of the ongoing integration process. International Cooperation and Support for Remote Work: Modifying TBD procedures to more effectively facilitate remote work and international collaboration, with an emphasis on lowering obstacles to communication for dispersed teams. Immutable Infrastructure and Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Alignment of TBD with new paradigms such as Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and Immutable Infrastructure, with a focus on versioning and configuration management of infrastructure changes within the main branch....

Conclusion

In this article we have came across trunk based development and its benefits, practices. It is currently the standard for high performing engineering teams since it sets and maintains a software release cadence by using a simplified git branching strategy. Trunk-based development gives engineering teams more flexibility and control over how they deliver software to the end user....