First, let’s look at the Git flow diagram:

• The flowchart might seem complex at first glance. We’ll use Sourcetree to help understand the process.

Getting Started (Screenshots show Sourcetree operations, commands show actual execution)

Create a new project log-service

mkdir log-service
cd log-service
git init

Initialize project configuration

• Set up framework selection, project description, etc.
• Replace the following commands with your actual operations:

echo "## log-service" > README.md
git add README.md
git commit -m "init project"

Initialize workflow (git flow init)

• Both red and green arrows in the image can initialize a workflow

Create a new feature (git flow feature start show-log)

• We’ll create a feature show-log
• This is checked out from the develop branch

Commit code

• Simulate some operations with the following code:

echo "collect show log" > show.log
git add show.log
git commit -m "add: show log"

Complete the feature (git flow feature finish show-log)

• After completion:
  • show-log branch merges into develop
  • show-log branch gets deleted

Simulating collaborative development conflicts

• Add click logs with two developers working on click-log-1 and click-log-2

git flow feature start click-log-1
git flow feature start click-log-2
git checkout feature/click-log-1
echo "click 1 log" > click.log
git add click.log
git commit -m "add: click log"
git checkout feature/click-log-2
echo "                   first  \n click 2 log" > click.log
git add click.log
git commit -m "add: click log"

• Complete feature operations:
  • git flow feature finish click-log-1
  • git flow feature finish click-log-2
• The first operation succeeds normally
• The second operation reports conflicts since both modified click.log
• The click-log-2 branch remains after failed merge
• The actual git flow feature finish process:

git checkout develop
git merge feature/<feature_name>
git branch -d feature/<feature_name>

• Resolve conflicts manually, commit changes, then delete branch:
• git branch -d feature/click-log-2

Create a release version (git flow release start v1.0.0)

• Checked out from develop branch
  

  

  
  

  

• If a bug is found during testing:
  • Fix directly in release branch
  • Simulate release bug fix:
  • echo "release v1.0.0" > release.log
  • git add release.log
  • git commit -m "fix: release bug"

Complete release version (git flow release finish v1.0.0)

• After testing/bug fixing:
• Merges into both develop and master
  

  

  
  

  

Create a hotfix (git flow hotfix start click-log)

• Emergency fix for production click log issue
• Checked out from master branch
• Simulate hotfix:
• echo "fix click log" >> click.log
• git add click.log
• git commit -m "fix: click log"

Complete hotfix (git flow hotfix finish click-log)

• Automatically merges into develop and master
  

  

Important Notes

Remote repository connection

• For remote repositories, use publish operation after start
• git flow feature publish <feature_name> does:
  • Creates remote feature/<feature_name> branch
  • Sets local branch to track remote
  • Pushes uncommitted changes

To push or not to push

• Push if feature requires collaboration
• No need if working solo

Merging considerations

In team collaboration:

• Repository admin should create master branch and initialize GitFlow locally before pushing both master and develop to remote (with write protection on master)
• Collaborators clone project and initialize GitFlow with same configs
• Collaborators push features to develop
• Admin handles release branches and versioning

References

The Ultimate Guide to Gitflow Usage
Git Flow Workflow Implementation in Sourcetree
https://www.git-tower.com