What is the primary function of a Release Branch?

The primary function of a Release Branch is to group feature branches' changes for deployment. This branch serves as a stable point in the development lifecycle where all the completed features, enhancements, and fixes from various feature branches are integrated before being deployed into production. The purpose of creating a Release Branch is to facilitate a controlled and organized release process, allowing developers to ensure that all features are working together harmoniously and that any last-minute testing or adjustments can be made prior to the final deployment.

This approach provides several advantages, including improved collaboration among team members, a clearer structure for version management, and a streamlined way to manage deployments. It allows teams to isolate changes that are intended for a particular release while ensuring that the ongoing development work in feature branches is not disrupted.

In contrast, other choices focus on different aspects of the development workflow. For example, merging all feature changes into production directly relates to the final deployment rather than the grouping process, acting as a feature development branch pertains to the initial stages of development rather than the deployment phase, and isolating experimental changes from production addresses a different scenario than that of preparing bundled releases.