Types of Merge Strategies or Commit Behaviors in Azure Devops

In Azure DevOps (and Git in general), when merging branches, there are several types of merge strategies or commit behaviors beyond just fast-forward. Here’s a breakdown:

✅ 1. Fast-Forward Merge

• Used when: The target branch is directly ahead of the source branch (no new commits in target).
• Result: Moves the branch pointer forward; no merge commit created.
• Cleanest history.

✅ 2. Merge Commit

• Used when: The branches have diverged.
• Result: A new merge commit is created, combining both histories.
• Pros: Preserves the full context of the branches.
• Command: git merge (default without --ff-only)

✅ 3. Squash Merge

• Used when: You want to flatten all commits into a single commit in the target branch.
• Result: Clean target history, but original commits are not preserved.
• Common for: Feature branches.
• Command: git merge --squash

✅ 4. Rebase and Merge

• Used when: You want to reapply commits from the source onto the latest commit of the target branch.
• Result: Linear history without merge commits.
• Risk: Can be confusing in shared branches due to rewritten history.
• Command: git rebase followed by git merge

✅ 5. Manual Merge (Resolve Conflicts)

• Used when: Automatic merge fails due to conflicts.
• Result: Developer must resolve conflicts manually and then commit the resolution.
• Can occur in: Any merge type.

🔍 Comparison Table