Team Development with Visual Studio Team Foundation Server

Additional Resources
• For an introduction to branching and merging, see “Branching and Merging Primer”
at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa730834(VS.80).aspx
• For more information about branching, see “How to: Branch Files and Folders” at
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms181425(VS.80).aspx
• For more information about merging, see “How to: Merge Files and Folders” at
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms181428(VS.80).aspx
• For additional descriptions of how to branch and merge in Visual Studio 2005, see
“Branching and Merging Team Foundation Source Control” at
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms181423(VS.80).aspx
How to Use Branching to Stabilize Your Development and Build Process
Use a Development branch for active development and a Main branch for your
integration build, thus avoiding build breaks.
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 Development
branch:
• When to branch – If you are creating daily builds and are having problems with
build stabilization and integration, create both a Main and a Development branch
to provide more predictability to your daily build. You might also want to
consider more stringent check-in policies to improve check-in quality.
• When not to branch – If you are only creating Continuous Integration (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 should be read/write for developers responsible for
merging and integration, but read-only for everyone else.
o The Development branch should be read/write for everyone.
• Build frequency in branch:
o Daily builds on the Main branch.
o Continuous Integration builds on the Development 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 Development branch.