Trunk-based development

As explained in Effective Platform Engineering

Trunk-based development is a version-control practice in which developers integrate small changes frequently into a shared mainline.

Trunk-based development integrates small changes frequently into a shared mainline. Platform teams preferably pair-program and push directly to trunk, while short-lived story branches or pull requests remain acceptable when changes merge at least daily, preferably more often. section 6.3.3

Apply the practice by:

• Keeping branches short-lived rather than allowing long-running divergence. section 6.3.3
• Merging changes frequently into main, ideally through direct pushes or GitHub pull requests. section 6.3.3
• Treating infrastructure pipelines as software pipelines, with integration connected to a fixed path toward production. section 6.3.3

Figure 6.10 Well-architected Infrastructure-as-code pipelines are no different from well-architected regular software pipelines. This is why we prefer the term “software-defined infrastructure” to differentiate between simply using an infrastructure-as-code (IaC) framework like Terraform and the software engineering practices that are a part of sustainable, high-quality software developer lifecycle management of an engineering platform product.

Compare trunk-based infrastructure work with broader software-pipeline practices such as testing, static analysis, and staged deployment. section 6.3.3

How Effective Platform Engineering covers it

How deep it goes

Specifies pair programming, short-lived branches, and daily-or-more-frequent merges, without detailing branching mechanics or conflict resolution.

Examples

Uses platform-team pushes to trunk, short-lived GitHub story branches, and infrastructure changes progressing through a sandbox environment.

What you can do after

Apply it by merging platform changes frequently into main while preserving a stable, recurring release path.

How it connects

Connects pair programming, pull requests, continuous integration, infrastructure pipelines, and continuous deployment.

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Also explained in

• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  Platform Engineering on KubernetesTrunk-based development is a source-control practice in which the main branch remains continuously releasable through small, validated changes and short-lived feature branches.
• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  Infrastructure as Code, Patterns and Practices: With examples in Python and TerraformTrunk-based development is a workflow that integrates small, incremental changes directly into a shared main branch with short-lived or no feature branches.
• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  The AI Pocket BookA development workflow where changes are integrated directly into the main branch with supporting practices to avoid breaking production.

Compare how 4 books explain trunk-based development →

Related concepts

• branchuses · A branch is an independently evolving line of development in a version-control repository, typically represented by a reference to a sequence of changes or commits.
• deployment pipelineuses · A sequence of automated or manual stages that builds, tests or validates, packages, and delivers software or models toward deployment.
• feature-based developmentalternative to · Feature-based development is a software and infrastructure workflow that isolates changes on separate branches before review and merging.
• feature flagconfigures · A feature flag is a configuration control that conditionally enables, disables, or selects a software feature or behavior.
• driftaddresses · Drift is a change over time in a system’s behavior, state, data, or configuration relative to a reference or expected baseline.

This explainer was generated by Manning's knowledge graph from the text of Effective Platform Engineering. The section links point to the parts of the book it draws on.