I ve finished working on a feature branch feature-x I want to merge results back to the default branch and close feature-x in order to get rid of it in the output of hg branches I came up with the following scenario but it has some issues hg up default hg merge feature-x hg ci -m merge hg up feature-x hg ci -m Closed branch feature-x --close-branch So the feature-x branch changests 40-41 is closed but there is one new head the closing branch changeset 44 that will be listed in hg heads every time hg log o 44 Closed branch feature-x 43 merge o 42 Changeset C o 41 Changeset 2 o 40 Changeset 1 o 39 Changeset B o 38 Changeset A Update It appears that since version 1 5 Mercurial doesn t show heads of closed branches in the output of hg heads anymore Is it possible to close a merged branch without leaving one more head Is there more correct way to close a feature branch Related questions Is there a downside to this Mercurial workflow named branch dead head

It is strange that no one yet has suggested the most robust way of closing a feature branches You can just combine merge commit with --close-branch flag i e commit modified files and close the branch simultaneously hg up feature-x hg merge default hg ci -m Merge feature-x and close branch --close-branch hg branch default -f So that is all No one extra head on revgraph No extra commit

One way is to just leave merged feature branches open and inactive hg up default hg merge feature-x hg ci -m merge hg heads 1 head hg branches default 43 feature-x 41 2 branches hg branches -a default 43 1 branch Another way is to close a feature branch before merging using an extra commit hg up feature-x hg ci -m Closed branch feature-x --close-branch hg up default hg merge feature-x hg ci -m merge hg heads 1 head hg branches default 43 1 branch The first one is simpler but it leaves an open branch The second one leaves no open heads branches but it requires one more auxiliary commit One may combine the last actual commit to the feature branch with this extra commit using --close-branch but one should know in advance which commit will be the last one Update Since Mercurial 1 5 you can close the branch at any time so it will not appear in both hg branches and hg heads anymore The only thing that could possibly annoy you is that technically the revision graph will still have one more revision without childen Update 2 Since Mercurial 1 8 bookmarks have become a core feature of Mercurial Bookmarks are more convenient for branching than named branches See also this question Mercurial branching and bookmarks

EDIT ouch too late I know read your comment stating that you want to keep the feature-x changeset around so the cloning approach here doesn t work I ll still let the answer here for it may help others If you want to completely get rid of feature X because for example it didn t work you can clone This is one of the method explained in the article and it does work and it talks specifically about heads As far as I understand you have this and want to get rid of the feature-x head once and for all changeset 7 00a7f69c8335 tag tip parent 4 31b6f976956b parent 2 0a834fa43688 summary merge o changeset 5 013a3e954cfd summary Closed branch feature-x o changeset 4 31b6f976956b summary Changeset2 o changeset 3 5cb34be9e777 parent 1 1cc843e7f4b5 summary Changeset 1 o changeset 2 0a834fa43688 summary Changeset C o changeset 1 1cc843e7f4b5 summary Changeset B o changeset 0 a9afb25eaede summary Changeset A So you do this hg clone cleanedrepo --rev 7 And you ll have the following and you ll see that feature-x is indeed gone changeset 5 00a7f69c8335 tag tip parent 4 31b6f976956b parent 2 0a834fa43688 summary merge o changeset 4 31b6f976956b summary Changeset2 o changeset 3 5cb34be9e777 parent 1 1cc843e7f4b5 summary Changeset 1 o changeset 2 0a834fa43688 summary Changeset C o changeset 1 1cc843e7f4b5 summary Changeset B o changeset 0 a9afb25eaede summary Changeset A I may have misunderstood what you wanted but please don t mod down I took time reproducing your use case

[merge] How to correctly close a feature branch in Mercurial?

imho there are two cases for branches that were forgot to close

Case 1: branch was not merged into default

in this case I update to the branch and do another commit with --close-branch, unfortunatly this elects the branch to become the new tip and hence before pushing it to other clones I make sure that the real tip receives some more changes and others don't get confused about that strange tip.

hg up myBranch
hg commit --close-branch

Case 2: branch was merged into default

This case is not that much different from case 1 and it can be solved by reproducing the steps for case 1 and two additional ones.

in this case I update to the branch changeset, do another commit with --close-branch and merge the new changeset that became the tip into default. the last operation creates a new tip that is in the default branch - HOORAY!

hg up myBranch
hg commit --close-branch
hg up default
hg merge myBranch

Hope this helps future readers.

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