Pin branch to left in the graph 📌

348 votes

Allow pinning a certain branch to the left side of the graph. All the commits in that branch's direct history should always appear on the left side. This is particularly useful for the default branch in a repository, or a prod branch, where you want to see how things are getting merged into it directionally.

Bonus: Support an ordering of multiple branches/branch patterns (would integrate nicely with Git Flow).

Under consideration Suggested by: Max A (15 Jun, '21) • Upvoted: 07 Jan • Comments: 26

Comments: 26

22 Jun, '21
Rob Merged
I often adopt very messy repos where best practices are inconsistent or non existent. It would be very helpful to be able to pin a specific branch to the left side of the Commit Graph. This would make it easier to visually follow the flow or commits in and out of a Base or Main Branch without having to solo it.
1
22 Jun, '21
Giacomo Zanotti Admin
"Add the ability to pin a specific branch to the left side of the graph view without soloing" (suggested by Rob on 2021-06-22), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
24 Jun, '21
Appurist
I just independently made this same suggestion in a Twitter reply. I'd love to see something done to make the behavior more predictable.

I'd also be even happier to see *auto*-pinning of branch order (or default ordering) with either left-side priority given to older created branches, or right-side priority given to branches with more recent commits (perhaps a preference). Although the latter would still reorder after a merge... :(

Obviously manual pinning allows any of these approaches, but there's still an opportunity to avoid the need for manual pinning at all if the default ordering of branches was based on something specific like this, and thus more deterministic. One UI problem this could avoid is the seemingly random reordering of branches after a merge.
2
09 Aug, '21
Danny Pursley Merged
In the GRAPH column it would be so helpful if the MASTER release was always on the far left and then DEVELOP was always the next column to the right of MASTER and then features continued out to the right of that. Currently it seems random where the MASTER and DEVELOP paths are located making it more difficult to follow what branch is MASTER and which one is actually DEVELOP, etc.
2
09 Aug, '21
Giacomo Zanotti Admin
"Organize GRAPH Column" (suggested by Danny Pursley on 2021-08-09), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
14 Sep, '21
Morgan Scruggs Merged
an option to keep master branch on the left or right of the tree to make it easy to follow.
14 Sep, '21
Giacomo Zanotti Admin
"option to show master branch always on one edge of the tree" (suggested by Morgan Scruggs on 2021-09-14), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
10 Dec, '21
Kouji Matsui
Oh, I understand why harder tracking branch history on my job repos. It causes by git-flow like branch management. I'm strongly upvote supporting this in near the future GitKraken!
09 Feb, '22
Bernd Wechner
I would request that we be able to ping one or two branches to the left as straight lines bottom to top with the rest as branches off to the right and between these two.

These can map very elegantly to the two dominant branches most project manage, the master/main branch and the development branch.

Whichever one is checked-out I would argue should be leftmost, and the other beside it to the right.
16 Feb, '22
Chris Roberts
I would love to be able to pin the main/master branch to the left of the tree. I'm working with a slightly odd git repo which has many small branches that are all getting contributed to regularly. I often lose the master branch within the others as they await to be validated and merged in.
05 Mar, '22
Steve
I'd like to add my upvote to this request, it'd be very handy!
08 Apr, '22
Jason Persson
I badly want this. My workplace refuse to use a linear history because of the perceived difficulty of rebasing. Jetbrains IDEs and the **free** git extensions are able to do this.
21 Jul, '22
Nathan
Great idea, in our git flow there are few "static" branches that could be pinned (dev, release-candidate, prod)
and many temporary branches (features, and fixes)
being able to pin the static branches can simplify significantly the graph complexity and the constant movement of the branches.
---
would be nice if the "pin" could work on regexes, so I can configure something like:
branches order:
1. dev
2. rc/*
3. prod

were the rc refers to any branch start with rc: rc/1.1.1, rc/1.2 etc.

thanks
09 Aug, '22
Xorcist
I would like to see an option for strictly time based ordering of the graph. It should be simple enough to order all the branches/nodes by creation date so that the graph is historically accurate from bottom to top, rather than the current graph which just pushes the latest worked branch to the left-most position.
12 Aug, '22
Tim G
This will make it much clearer for users where they're editing code. Muliple pins are essential - for example we have a prod and dev branch, where further branches are taken from. Some kind of left to right auto formatting may be the solution here.
Also highlighting the 'working' branch, or allowing colour selection as well as pinning or setting left to right may be further helpful.
08 Sep, '22
Sam
I would very much like this feature. Even just a single pinned branch would help me greatly.
21 Oct, '22
Ismael
I second this!
(I was searching for this option and found this request instead)
17 Nov, '22
Carles Mitjans
I would really like this feature as well
10 Feb, '23
Jose
Pin branch, fav branch, anything to be able to retrieve a branch easier when switching between one and another in a busy repository that has 20 employees in it. I often find myself helping others too a crtiical bugs, so highlighting my own branches is not enough, and I do not clean my local branches because I'm messy, I use the filter instead.
14 Feb, '23
Chris Bowie Admin
"Add possibility to PIN a branch on the origin" (suggested by Paolo Ponznao on 2023-02-11), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
26 Jun, '23
Rodrigo Sales
I agree, this is what keep me using Git Extensions, there I can easily follow the current branch in the graph, it would be even more helpful if GitKraken change the branch colors based on this also (or make the other branchs with no colors like Git Extensions)
14 Dec, '23
Chad
Our company's teams would definitely use this feature, looking to pin multiple branches to the left in a configurable order per repository. As a couple examples, this would be rc,dev,beta for most of our repos/teams, and release,uat,test,dev for others. The pinned configuration should also be visible/enabled by all GitKraken users to save the same configuration from having to be done on N systems for X repos. Using 30 users and 40 repos as an example, this would mean 1 person configuring this 40 times instead of 30 people configuring it 40 times for a total of 1200 configurations.
1
21 Mar, '24
David
Yes, please! I can't imagine a feature I'd want more than this.
1
24 May, '24
JWT
Also upvoted... came here looking for exactly this suggestion! :)
1
13 Sep, '24
Mad User
I dont understand how on earth after so long they dont have a simple reordering or pining of the local branches at least. This is absurd. Local branches are all over the place, ordered god knows how. Main branches in the middle of various folders while they should always be at the top. Just for this nonsense I am thinking of cancelling the subscription as this just shows how they dont give a shit about any useful suggestions. This suggestion has over 300 upvotes and its been 3 fucking years.
1
10 Oct, '24
karol
i would love that! im waiting for so long
pinning or ordering would be great, especially when in-sync with branch tree on left side