Main Branch: A Newsletter About Fundamentals First Always

Source: Dev.to

Introduction

I started a newsletter in 2025. Every week I talk to developers who are drowning in AI hype while still manually managing merge conflicts. Fundamentals first, always.

What is Main Branch?

Main Branch is a newsletter about developer workflows and the tools that actually ship code—not the flashy features that dominate headlines. It focuses on the everyday utilities you use dozens of times a day.

I’ve been a Developer Advocate at GitHub and have observed a huge gap between announced features and what developers actually adopt. The gap isn’t due to poor quality; it’s because nobody talks about the practical, day‑to‑day stuff.

Examples of the kind of details we cover:

• Workflow dispatch now supports 25 inputs instead of 10.
• You can comment on unchanged lines in PRs.

These aren’t splashy announcements, but they can save you 20 minutes each day.

Topics Covered

Git Essentials

• git reflog – recover from bad rebases.
• git bisect – binary‑search bugs.
• git fetch --prune – stop chasing deleted branches.

Pull‑Request UI Improvements

• Files Changed tab redesign: batch‑apply suggested changes, view PR descriptions without tab‑hopping, let Copilot group changes into scannable chunks.

GitHub Actions Security

• OIDC tokens with check_run_id for compliance.
• pull_request_target lockdown to prevent vulnerable workflows on stale branches.

Model Context Protocol (MCP)

• Why MCP isn’t an API.
• How dynamic toolsets solve the “100‑tools problem.”
• The --tools flag for surgical control.

Runner Optimizations

• 1 vCPU Linux runners – because not everything needs 4 cores to run npm install.

CodeRabbit + Copilot Workflows

• One understands intent, the other catches runtime bugs; together they streamline development.

Community Feedback

“This is the first GitHub newsletter I’ve read where I learned something I could use that same day.” – a subscriber

Giveaway

To celebrate reaching 100 subscribers, I’m running a giveaway next week.

Subscribe to Main Branch and you’re automatically entered:

mainbranch.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Why Subscribe?

If you’re tired of AI hype and want to write better code with the tools you already have, Main Branch delivers:

• More CLI workflows.
• Real‑world configurations.
• Practical “how‑to” content that ships production code.

Fundamentals outlast hype cycles—every single time.