Branches

Read through GiLab's branching documentation:

• Create a branch
• Default branch
• Protected branches
• Delete merged branches
• Branch filter search box

See also:

• GitLab Flow: use the best of GitLab for your branching strategies
• Getting started with Git and GitLab

Default branch

When you create a new project, GitLab sets master as the default branch for your project. You can choose another branch to be your project's default under your project's Settings > Repository.

The default branch is the branch affected by the issue closing pattern, which means that an issue will be closed when a merge request is merged to the default branch.

The default branch is also protected against accidental deletion. Read through the documentation on protected branches to learn more.

Delete merged branches

Introduced in GitLab 8.14.

This feature allows merged branches to be deleted in bulk. Only branches that have been merged and are not protected will be deleted as part of this operation.

It's particularly useful to clean up old branches that were not deleted automatically when a merge request was merged.

Branch filter search box

Introduced in GitLab 11.5.

This feature allows you to search and select branches quickly. Search results appear in the following order:

• Branches with names that matched search terms exactly.
• Other branches with names that include search terms, sorted alphabetically.

Sometimes when you have hundreds of branches you may want a more flexible matching pattern. In such cases you can use the following:

• ^feature will only match branch names that begin with 'feature'.
• feature$ will only match branch names that end with 'feature'.