Welcome to merge-strategies

This is an auto-generated documentation file.

Merge Strategies

Git supports multiple strategies to resolve merges between branches. These determine how the merge is performed when automatic reconciliation is needed.

1. Recursive (default)

• This is Git’s default merge strategy.
• It handles two heads (branches) and performs a three-way merge.
• It can automatically resolve trivial conflicts and detect renames.

When to use:

• Most common scenario: merging feature branches into main.

Command (implicitly used):

git merge feature
# or explicitly:
git merge -s recursive feature

2. Resolve

• A simpler strategy than recursive, used only when the history is simple.
• Does not support renames or complex conflict resolution.
• Older strategy, rarely used now.

When to use:

• Very basic branches with no file renames or criss-cross merges.

Command:

git merge -s resolve feature

3. Ours

• This strategy favors the current branch's changes.
• Conflicts are automatically resolved by discarding the incoming branch’s content.

When to use:

• When you want to keep the current branch’s content no matter what.
• Useful in complex situations like combining unrelated histories.

Command:

git merge -s ours legacy-feature

4. Octopus

• Allows merging more than two branches simultaneously.
• Useful for automatic merges of many topic branches.
• Cannot handle conflicts; if one exists, the merge fails.

When to use:

• Merging multiple simple branches (e.g., after parallel developments).

Command:

git merge -s octopus topic1 topic2 topic3

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