Local development
Branch before you touch the database — every time. Develop against real, production-shaped data instead of a stale dump or a shared staging box.
A branch per task
$ anybranch create feature-x --from prod --print-url
postgresql://you:••••@branches.internal:57380/appPoint your app’s DATABASE_URL at it. Run migrations, try the destructive change, seed test rows — it is yours. Nothing you do reaches production or a teammate’s branch.
Reset instead of re-seed
When a branch gets messy, anybranch reset feature-x throws away your changes and re-clones a fresh copy from the current replica — faster and truer than rebuilding a seed script.
Leave it running
Idle branches suspend on their own after five minutes and resume instantly on the next connection, so there is no cleanup pressure on your laptop. Delete a branch with anybranch rm when the task is done.
Seed or anonymize every branch
Set a branch_sql hook on the root so every new branch comes up with fixtures applied or sensitive columns redacted, without each developer keeping their own script:
$ anybranch settings prod set branch_sql @seed.sql --hook 20-seed