Maybe for your particular problem it's worthwhile to setup a CM policy for the (topic) branch naming. For example in your case something like: topic/alkonaut/ve

Maybe for your particular problem it's worthwhile to setup a CM policy for the (topic) branch naming. For example in your case something like: topic/alkonaut/version-1.0/foo or topic/alkonaut/master/bar. Or use something like: git log --all --graph --oneline One tip for "zigzag spiderweb" is to always rebase your topic branch to the target branch prior to a fast-forward merge to the target branch (e.g. master). To clarify: while in your branch topic/foobar: "git rebase master", "git checkout master", "git merge --ff-only topic/foobar". (There's surely a clever shorthand for the above procedure but when it comes to the command line, I like to combine small things instead of complicated memorized things, it's some kind of Lego syndrome)