What is trunk-based development?

Trunk-based development is a version control management practice where all developers work on the same trunk of shared code. The trunk is always in a releasable state, which means that at least once a day, developers must integrate their changes to the trunk. This is accomplished through short-lived feature branches related to project tasks. Trunk-based development is a common practice among DevOps teams and part of the DevOps lifecycle since it streamlines merging and integration phases. It also enables continuous integration, which is the practice of merging all development versions of a code base several times a day. Trunk-based development has several benefits, such as:

It reduces the complexity and conflicts of merging long-lived branches

It improves the quality and consistency of the code by enforcing frequent testing and validation

It accelerates the delivery and deployment of new functionality by minimizing the transaction cost and risk

It fosters a culture of collaboration and transparency among developers