Build Basics / Standard term
Branch
A branch is a separate line of work in your project where you can make changes safely while the main version stays untouched until you decide to combine the two.
A branch is a separate line of work in your project where you can make changes safely while the main version stays untouched until you decide to combine the two. Your project's history splits into parallel tracks: the main track everyone relies on, and a side track where edits happen first. Say your to-do app works and you want an AI agent to add a password reset feature. You tell it to start a branch named password-reset and do the work there. If the new code breaks something, your live app is fine because every edit lived on the branch. Once the feature looks right, you fold the branch back into main.
Builder example
Branches let you point an AI coding agent at risky changes without gambling your working app. When you ask the agent to rewrite how a support bot answers questions, having it work on its own branch means a bad attempt never touches the version users see. You review the branch, run it, and only combine it into main once it passes. If the experiment fails, you delete the branch and lose nothing.
Common confusion: A branch holds changes that are isolated from the main version, so editing a branch leaves main exactly as it was. Making a commit on a branch does not update main; the two stay separate until a deliberate merge step pulls the branch's changes in.