What level of branching complexity is necessary for each project?

Simple personal projects

• Typically start with just the master branch.
• Use branches for unfinished/untested ideas.
• Use branches when you are not sure about a change.

Projects with few persons, you accept things breaking

• It might be reasonable to commit to the master branch and feature branches.

Projects with few persons, changes are reviewed by others

• The master branch is write-protected.
• You create new feature branches for changes.
• Changes are reviewed before they are merged to the master branch (more about that in the collaborative Git lesson).

When you distribute releases

• If you want to patch releases, you probably need release branches.
• The master branch and release branches are read-only.
• Many branching models exist.

How about staging and committing?

• It is OK to start committing directly.
• Commit early and often, rather create too many commits than too few: you can always combine commits later.
• Once you commit, it is very, very hard to really lose your code
• Always fully commit (or stash) before you do dangerous things, so that you know you are safe. Otherwise it can be hard to recover.
• Later you can start using the staging area.
• Later start using git add -p and/or git commit -p.