To elaborate a bit, we do not allow merging to the mainline until all reviews are completed, manual testing has been performed, and a continuous integration bui

To elaborate a bit, we do not allow merging to the mainline until all reviews are completed, manual testing has been performed, and a continuous integration build passes on the feature branch. At that point, we merge to the mainline, then after we get a successful build there (to ensure there were no merge issues), we tag the mainline for release. This is all very well documented within our company and everybody understands the process. The result is that we have cleaner code and fewer bugs in production (although they still get there). It's really just second nature to all developers. We've been able to develop a very solid set of unit tests and browser-based tests (selenium) that give us a lot of confidence in our releases. Manual testing catches a few things that didn't make it into automated tested, including (but not limited) user interface issues.