Yes I do work directly on master because I use the http://martinfowler.com/bliki/FeatureToggle.html http://martinfowler.com/bliki/FeatureToggle.html pattern as

Yes I do work directly on master because I use the http://martinfowler.com/bliki/FeatureToggle.html http://martinfowler.com/bliki/FeatureToggle.html pattern as opposed to http://martinfowler.com/bliki/FeatureBranch.html http://martinfowler.com/bliki/FeatureBranch.html because in my experience branches come with an amount of technical debt that has been unacceptable to me (you just delay merging your code, making it a bigger more dangerous merge). Branches also encourage a workflow [in my experience] where the devs implement multiple unfinished features on different branches. That's another form of technical debt. If everyone works right on master, it is more natural to finish a feature before moving onto the next. I've also had to rewrite history on a git repository to remove things like binary files. In the top level comment for this thread, I'd say the situation could have been avoided if that developer were cherry-picking to the git repo on his computer, then pushing that branch to the server. The history would be present on both that dev's computer as well as the server, so losing the history on the server would not affect the branch on that developer's machine. Not sure if the comment implies the developer had SSH'd to a live server & performed his cherry-pick there, but that's how it sounds. The only use I've found for [feature] branches in my day to day work is a place for a junior developer or un-trusted OSS contributors to push changes for me to review before I merge them in. If I'm on an experienced team, I find things go smoothest if we all stay on master.