Trunk-Based Development
Integrate all work to the trunk at least once per day to enable continuous integration.
Phase 1: Foundations
Establish the essential practices for daily integration, testing, and small work decomposition.
2 minute read
Key question: “Can we integrate safely every day?”
This phase establishes the development practices that make continuous delivery possible. Without these foundations, pipeline automation just speeds up a broken process.
What You’ll Do
- Adopt trunk-based development - Integrate to trunk at least daily
- Build testing fundamentals - Create a fast, reliable test suite
- Automate your build - One command to build, test, and package
- Decompose work - Break features into small, deliverable increments
- Streamline code review - Fast, effective review that doesn’t block flow
- Establish working agreements - Shared definitions of done and ready
- Everything as code - Version-control everything that defines your system: infrastructure, pipelines, schemas, monitoring, and security policies
Why This Phase Matters
Teams that skip these foundations end up automating a broken process. A pipeline that deploys untested code from long-lived branches does not improve delivery. It amplifies risk. These practices ensure that what enters the pipeline is already safe to ship.
When You’re Ready to Move On
Start investing in Phase 2: Pipeline when you are making consistent progress toward these - don’t wait for every criterion to be perfect:
- All developers integrate to trunk at least once per day
- Your test suite catches real defects and runs in under 10 minutes
- You can build and package your application with a single command
- Most work items can be completed within 2 days
Next: Phase 2 - Pipeline - build a single automated path from commit to production.
Related Content
- Phase 0: Assess - The assessment phase that precedes Foundations
- Phase 2: Pipeline - The next phase after establishing foundations
- DORA Recommended Practices - Research-backed capabilities that drive delivery performance
- No Fast Feedback - Symptom that foundational practices address
- Works on My Machine - Symptom eliminated by build automation and testing foundations
- Deployment Frequency - Key metric that improves as foundations mature
Testing Fundamentals
Build a test architecture that gives your pipeline the confidence to deploy any change, even when dependencies outside your control are unavailable.
Build Automation
Automate your build process so a single command builds, tests, and packages your application.
Work Decomposition
Break features into small, deliverable increments that can be completed in 2 days or less.
Code Review
Streamline code review to provide fast feedback without blocking flow.
Working Agreements
Establish shared definitions of done and ready to align the team on quality and process.
Everything as Code
Every artifact that defines your system (infrastructure, pipelines, configuration, database schemas, monitoring) belongs in version control and is delivered through pipelines.