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# What is the GitLab Flow
This document was moved to [another location](../../topics/gitlab_flow.md).
- A simplified branching strategy
- All features and fixes first go to master
- Allows for 'production' or 'stable' branches
- Bug fixes/hot fix patches are cherry-picked from master
## Feature branches
- Create a feature/bugfix branch to do all work
- Use merge requests to merge to master
![inline](gitlab_flow/feature_branches.png)
## Production branch
- One, long-running production release branch
as opposed to individual stable branches
- Consider creating a tag for each version that gets deployed
![inline](gitlab_flow/production_branch.png)
## Release branch
- Useful if you release software to customers
- When preparing a new release, create stable branch
from master
- Consider creating a tag for each version
- Cherry-pick critical bug fixes to stable branch for patch release
- Never commit bug fixes directly to stable branch
![inline](gitlab_flow/release_branches.png)
## More details
For more information, read through the [GitLab Flow](../../topics/gitlab_flow.md)
documentation.
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