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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-27T15:03:09+00:00

I’m unclear on a basic principle of how Git branches work. Say I have

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I’m unclear on a basic principle of how Git branches work.

Say I have a repo on master branch (which is the trunk of my project) and it’s at v 1.0. Then I decide I want to create an experimental branch to do some funky new stuff, so I do git branch experimental from the master branch and add some new functionality, and commit my changes to experimental.

My partner goes and updates the master branch to v 1.1, and I pull his changes into my master branch.

Will all the v 1.0 files in the experimental branch that were not modified by my edits to experimental stay current with the latest master files (eg. become v 1.1)?

Or do I need to merge the master branch into experimental to prevent all non-modified files in the experimental branch from staying at v 1.0 ?

If so, what’s the process for merging these 1.1 changes into experimental without also contaminating the master branch with my funky new stuff?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Will all the v 1.0 files in the experimental branch that were not modified by my edits to experimental stay current with the latest master files (eg. become v 1.1)?

    No Git will not modify any files behind your back. Maybe you want it to stay at 1.0 😉

    Or do I need to merge the master branch into experimental to prevent all non-modified files in the experimental branch from staying at v 1.0 ?

    Correct.

    If so, what’s the process for merging these 1.1 changes into experimental without also contaminating the master branch with my funky new stuff?

    $ git checkout experimental
$ git merge master
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