1.9Exercises

Beginner

1. Identify which branching strategy your current team uses (or the team at your last job). Write down the branch names and what each one is used for.
2. Draw the branch diagram for your project on paper or a whiteboard. Where do features, releases, and hotfixes live?
3. List three advantages and three disadvantages of your current branching strategy.

Intermediate

4. Map out when each type of test runs in your current workflow. Are there gaps where code can reach production without certain tests running?
5. If your team uses GitFlow, identify tests that run twice (on develop and on release). Could you eliminate the duplication without reducing coverage?
6. If your team uses GitHub Flow, measure your PR pipeline time. Is it under 15 minutes? If not, identify the bottleneck.

Advanced

7. Write a proposal for migrating your team from GitFlow to GitHub Flow. Include the prerequisites (pipeline speed, test reliability, etc.) and a phased migration plan.
8. Design a feature flag strategy that would enable trunk-based development for your project. What flags would you need? How would tests interact with them?
9. Create a test execution matrix for all three branching strategies, customized to your project's specific test types and environments.