Work with branches

Create and manage documentation branches to preview changes, collaborate with teammates, and merge updates before publishing to production.

Branches are a feature of version control that point to specific commits in your repository. Your deployment branch, usually called main, represents the content used to build your live documentation site. All other branches are independent of your live docs unless you choose to merge them into your deployment branch.

Branches let you create separate instances of your documentation to make changes, get reviews, and try new approaches before publishing. Your team can work on branches to update different parts of your documentation simultaneously without affecting what users see on your live site.

The following diagram shows an example of a branch workflow where you create a feature branch, make changes, and then merge the feature branch into the main branch.

Always work from branches when updating documentation to keep your live site stable and enable review workflows.

Branch naming conventions

Use clear, descriptive names that explain the purpose of a branch.

Use:

fix-broken-links
add-webhooks-guide
reorganize-getting-started
ticket-123-oauth-guide

Avoid:

temp
my-branch
updates
branch1

Create a branch

Click the branch name in the editor toolbar. If you don’t see it, show the branch selector.
In Find a branch, type a descriptive title. If you leave it empty, the editor names the branch after the current date.
Click New branch.
If you have pending changes, choose Bring them to this branch or Leave them behind. Your original branch keeps its pending changes either way.

Create a branch from your terminal

git checkout -b branch-name

This creates the branch and switches to it in one command.

Push the branch to GitHub

git push -u origin branch-name

The -u flag sets up tracking so future pushes just need git push.

Save changes on a branch

You don’t need to save manually. The editor commits your edits to the branch about 15 seconds after you stop editing. The first commit opens a pull request against your deployment branch.

Stage, commit, and push your changes.

git add .
git commit -m "Describe your changes"
git push

Switch branches

Click the branch name in the editor toolbar to open the branch dropdown.
Search for a branch by name or scroll through the list.
Click the branch you want to switch to.

Each branch in the dropdown displays a pull request indicator so you can see whether the branch has an open, draft, merged, or closed pull request, or no pull request yet.

Before you search, the dropdown lists branches created in the editor and branches with an open pull request targeting your deployment branch. Searching by name also matches other branches in your repository, including branches pushed directly through Git and branches with merged or closed pull requests. See Branch missing from the web editor branch list.

Your pending changes stay on the branch you leave.

Switch to an existing branch:

git checkout branch-name

Or create and switch in one command:

git checkout -b new-branch-name

Merge branches

Once your changes are ready to publish, merge your branch into the deployment branch.

If Mintlify hosts your repository and your branch doesn’t require approvals, click Publish in the editor toolbar, then click Publish to merge your branch and publish your changes.

Otherwise:

Click Publish in the editor toolbar, then click Request review. This marks your branch’s pull request ready for review.
Complete any required reviews and checks.
Click Publish, then click Merge and publish.

See Publishing your changes for how the available publish actions change based on your branch and branch protections.

Push your branch, then open a pull request in your Git provider that targets your deployment branch. After the pull request merges, Mintlify builds and deploys your changes to your live site.

Delete a branch

Delete branches you no longer need to keep the branch dropdown manageable.

Click the branch name in the editor toolbar to open the branch dropdown.
Hover over the branch that you want to delete.
Click the Delete branch trash icon.
Click Delete branch to confirm.

Deleting a branch closes any open pull request for the branch and deletes the branch from your repository. You cannot delete your deployment branch.

Delete the branch locally:

git branch -d branch-name

Then delete it from your remote repository:

git push origin --delete branch-name