Team Development with Visual Studio Team Foundation Server

Additional Resources
• For more information, see “Chapter 8 – Setting Up a Continuous Integration Build
with Team Build” in this guide.
Use Branching to Reduce Build Breaks
To help avoid build breaks, you should use a Development branch for active
development and a Main branch for your integration build.
The following is an example of what your branch structure might look like after you have
created a Development branch:
• Development – Development Branch
o Source
• Main – Integration Branch
o Source
o Other Assets folders
Keep the following recommendations in mind when working with a release branch:
• When to branch. If you are creating daily builds and are having problems with build
stabilization and integration, you should create both a main and a development branch
to ensure greater predictability of your daily builds. You may also want to consider
more stringent check-in policies to improve check-in quality.
• When not to branch. If you are only creating CI builds, or your daily builds are
already predictably stable, you might not need the extra overhead of an integration
branch.
• Permissions on branch:
o The Main branch permissions should be read/write for developers responsible
for merging and integration, but read-only for everyone else.
o The Dev branch permissions should be read/write for everyone.
• Build frequency in branch:
o Daily builds on the Main branch.
o CI builds on the Dev branch.
• Testing focus on branch:
o Perform integration, performance, and security testing on the Main branch.
o Perform feature and quick feedback testing on the Dev branch.
Use the Main branch as a staging area for integrating changes that have been checked
into the development branch. Perform all active development in the Dev branch, and
integrate non-breaking changes into the Main branch.
Additional Resources
• For more information on defining a branching and merging strategy, see “Chapter 5 –
Defining Your Branching and Merging Strategy” in this guide.
• For an introduction to branching and merging, see “Branching and Merging Primer”
at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa730834(VS.80).aspx