Last updated: March 2025
Merge conflicts can be a major pain, whether they happen during your coding session or while reviewing work. They often lead to delays, rework, and frustration.
GitKraken Desktop’s Conflict Prevention helps you detect and manage potential conflicts before they cause disruptions.
Conflict Prevention
GitKraken detects potential merge conflicts with Org Members based on overlapping edits in committed changes that haven’t yet been merged into your target branch.
How It Works:
1. Conflict Alert Icon
After a coding session, open GitKraken Desktop. If potential conflicts exist, you’ll see an alert icon.
2. Click the Alert Icon
This will open a conflict detection menu with options to manage conflicts.
The active conflict with the target takes priority over org member potential conflicts. The potential conflicts only show up if you don’t have an active conflict with the target, not the other way around.
3. Resolve Conflicts Proactively
- Share edits as a Cloud Patch.
- Push your changes (if they aren’t already pushed).
- Copy a summary of overlapping edits to share with team members.
Target Branch Status
What if You Don’t Have Org Members
- Even without Org Members, GitKraken will still proactively detect conflicts between your branch and its target branch so you can resolve them before they get worse.
- You’ll be able to rebase or merge to resolve conflicts.
When No Conflicts Are Detected
If there are no conflicts detected with your target branch and there are no overlapping edits with other org members’ branches, you will see a target branch status indicator to confirm there are no conflicts with the target branch. The menu provides a quick option to open a pull request against the target branch or adjust your target branch preferences for the repository.
Want to Detect Conflicts Even Earlier
You can invite the author of the conflicting changes directly from the conflict detection menu.
Once they’re in your GitKraken organization, you’ll be notified as soon as they are editing in the same areas as you – no need to wait for the changes to merge into the target branch.
