Definition
Plain language
A separate line of edits to a codebase, so work can happen without disturbing the main copy.
As stated in the literature
A named, movable pointer to a commit in a version-control repository; changes accumulate on the branch until merged into another line of development.
Also called: branches
Why it matters: Branches let many people (and many agents) work on the same codebase at once without breaking the version everyone else depends on.
For example, a developer fixing a login bug creates a branch called fix-login, makes ten messy commits there, and only merges it into the main code once the fix actually works.
Heard on the show
“But there's a misplaced branch in the code structure: the copy only fires when the micro-batch counter equals zero.”Episode 009 — How Two Silent Library Bugs Quietly Invalidated a Wave of Reasoning Papers