Project branching

Currently project branching is in beta.

The development process often requires you to work on multiple branches. Lokalise supports branching similar to GitHub, with some limitations (see below).

Enabling branching

If branching feature is included in your subscription plan, you need to enable branching by going to project settings and ticking the Branching checkbox. Don't forget to click Save changes in the bottom afterwards.

Once enabled, Branches tab will appear in project settings. You can add, delete and merge branches there.

Creating branches

You can create branches either by using Branches tab in project settings, or directly from a branch selection dropdown (in the Editor or at the projects dashboard).

Merging

Once you are done working on a branch and would like to merge it, there are several things you should consider:

Branches can only be merged to master.
You cannot delete a branch when there are active tasks or orders on branch.
Merging is not available when there are active tasks or orders on master.
Conflicts can be resolved before merging.
Merge is irreversible.

Whenever you start the merging process, we check for conflicts.

You can resolve conflicts in favour of branch or master.

How branching affects your project

Once you enable branching, the current version of the project becomes the master branch.

Different areas/functions of the project are now either global or branch-specific.

Project settings

Project settings are global except for the base language, which can be set per branch.

Snapshots

Snapshots are currently created only for master branch. This applies to all automatic snapshots (i.e. when applying bulk actions).

Contributors

The contributor list is global.
Contributors have access to all branches.
Language access and roles are shared across all branches.

Languages

Languages are branch-specific.
There could be merge conflicts in languages, which you resolve at the merge phase.
Base language can differ per branch if you chose to delete base language in a branch for some reason.
Changing a language (in language settings) is disabled in branching mode.

Keys

Keys are branch-specific.
There could be merge conflicts in keys, which you resolve at the merge phase.
When merging, the new key data overwrites existing key data.
Key tags do not create conflicts, they are merged.

Comments

Comments are global.
When adding comments they will be visible across all branches for the key.

Translations

Translations are branch-specific.
There could be merge conflicts in keys, which you resolve at the merge phase.
Reviewed and Unverified statuses may also create conflicts.
On merge, the translation overwrites existing data including Reviewed, Unverified and if available Custom translation statuses.
Spelling exceptions apply to all branches.
References are branch-specific.
Cross branching references are not supported, and if you will reference some other project key then it will default to master.

Glossary

Glossary is global.
Term extraction works only from master.

Translation history

Translation history is global.
In the Translation history on a branch you can see the history from master translation.
As translation history resides on master, you cannot restore history on merge if you delete the key on master and choose to restore key on merge (if there was a conflict).

Screenshots

Screenshot storage is global, however key linking is branch-specific. If you delete a screenshot it gets deleted from all branches.

Uploads

Uploads are branch-specific.

Downloads

Downloads are branch-specific.
Strings included from other projects are based on master if branching is enabled.

Activity

Activity is branch-specific.
some activity appears only on master as it's global activity e.g. adding contributor
branch activity is lost after branch is deleted (does not apply to audit logs)

Tasks

Tasks are branch-specific.

Orders

Orders are branch-specific.

Statistics

Statistics are branch-specific.

API

API requests are branch-specific.
Branching is only available in API 2.0.

Integrations

Integrations are either global or branch-specific.
GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket are branch-specific.
Webhook, Asana, E-mail, Jira, Slack, Trello can be either global (any branch) or per branch.
All other integrations are for master only.

Offline Translations

Offline translations are branch-specific.
If an XLIFF file was downloaded from branch_a, it can only be uploaded back to branch_a, but not to branch_b. Similarly, a file downloaded from branch_b can only be uploaded to branch_b.