Is your team choosing the branching strategy from the beginning or is it switching after a while to better accommodate the current project stage? How does this affect you and what are the costs involved? Multiply this by the number of repositories, each playing a definite role in a large-scale project, and you will want to know how to minimize the impact. At the same time, some companies are migrating to monorepo, while others are running away from it and splitting their codebases into smaller repositories.

The branching model needs to be simple – so that everyone involved can grasp it quickly; flexible – so it can serve the needs of very different roles within the project lifecycle; and adaptable – when you have a particular unforeseen need, it should not be a barrier.

See what others are using already, ask a few questions that might drive an adaptation of your choice, and then choose wisely. Then let your team spend their time on coding rather than painfully switching strategies.