Get started with branching

Find detailed information and instructions about Neon's branching feature and how you can integrate branching with your development workflows.

What is branching?

Learn about branching and how you can apply it in your development workflows.

• Learn about branching

  Learn about Neon's branching feature and how to use it in your development workflows

• Database branching for Postgres

  Blog: Read about how Neon's branching feature works and what it means for your workflows

• Branch archiving

  Learn how Neon automatically archives inactive branches to cost-effective storage

Automate branching

Integrate branching into your CI/CD pipelines and workflows with the Neon API, CLI, GitHub Actions, and Githooks.

• Branching with the Neon API

  Learn how to instantly create and manage branches with the Neon API

• Branching with the Neon CLI

  Learn how to instantly create and manage branches with the Neon CLI

• Branching with GitHub Actions

  Automate branching with Neon's GitHub Actions for branching

• Branching with Githooks

  Blog: Learn how to automating branch creation with Githooks

Preview deployments

Create a branch for each preview deployment with the Neon Postgres Previews Integration.

• The Neon Postgres Previews Integration

  Connect your Vercel project and create a branch for each preview deployment

• Preview deployments with Vercel

  Blog: Read about full-stack preview deployments using the Neon Vercel Integration

• A database for every preview

  Blog: A database for every preview environment with GitHub Actions and Vercel

Test queries

Test potentially destructive or performance-impacting queries before your run them in production.

• Branching — Testing queries

  Instantly create a branch to test queries before running them in production

Data recovery and audits

Recover lost data or track down issues by restoring a branch to its history, or just create a point-in-time branch for historical analysis or any other reason.

• Branch Restore with Time Travel Assist

  Learn how to revert changes or recover lost data using Neon Branch Restore with Time Travel Assist

• Time Travel

  Query point-in-time connections with Time Travel

• Schema diff

  Visualize schema differences between branches to help with troubleshooting

Branching guides

Learn how to promote a branch to become your default branch.

• Promote a branch

  Promote a branch to the default branch of your Neon project using the Neon API

Example applications

Explore example applications that use Neon's branching feature.

• Time Travel Demo

  Use Neon branching, the Neon API, and a bisect script to recover lost data

• Neon Twitter app

  Use GitHub Actions to create and delete a branch with each pull request

• Preview branches app

  An application demonstrating using GitHub Actions with preview deployments in Vercel

• Neon Discord Bot

  Learn how to build a Discord bot while leveraging Neon branching