If you want to see a step by step demonstration of this, check out my latest YouTube tutorial!

The big takeaways:

- Branches let you experiment safely.
- Your main project stays stable.
- You only merge the good stuff back in.

This is how professionals (and big teams) work — but it’s just as useful for solo devs.

Sometimes you’ll run into merge conflicts if both branches change the same code.

Don’t worry — you just open it in a text editor and decide which version (or both) to keep.

That’s how you resolve conflicts.

Once you’re happy with your changes, you merge your feature branch back into main.

After merging, you can delete the branch or keep it around.

That’s the full workflow.

On your feature branch, you can keep making commits just like normal.

It works the same way as your main branch, but separate.

That’s what makes branches so powerful.

When you create a branch, you can copy your project from the latest state or even from an older snapshot.

Then you switch your workspace to that branch and experiment freely.

Your main project stays untouched.

When you create your repo, by default, you have a single branch: the main branch.

But you can create more!

A new branch is just a copy of your project where you can safely test new ideas.

You can name it after the feature you’re building — like feature-xyz.

If you use source control, you’ll never have to start a project over from scratch again.  

Want to see how it works step by step?  
Check out my full GitHub tutorial on my YouTube channel.

You can even create "branches."

Branches are safe copies of your project where you can try new ideas without breaking your main version.

From there, you can:  

- Save commits as you go  
- Publish your repo to GitHub for cloud backup  
- Revert to older versions when needed

Getting started is simple:  

1. Create a free GitHub account  
2. Download GitHub Desktop  
3. Sign in and create your first repo