Must we always update from main?

A colleague and I have been working on multiple components in separate branches from our main design library file (e.g. we created new branches for adding interactions to our buttons, a new menu component, and a new navigation drawer).

She reviewed my interactions branch and merged that back to main, so I then got prompted in my menu branch to pull in updates from main. But we saw that when we reviewed and merged in my menu branch, the button interaction updates were also appearing as changes in my branch where I was only working on the menu. The same thing happened when I opened my nav drawer branch and pulled in updates from main.

If she works on one component and I’m working on a separate component, does it really matter if we do or do not pull in updates after each of us merges back to main? So we don’t end up with updates from main appearing in our change list when we try to merge a branch?

If she works on a button and I work on a tab each in our own branches, if she merges her button branch to main and I don’t update my tab branch with those updates to main, does that matter?

In the end, her button updates and my tab updates will both end up in main, right?

Updating from main makes sense if she edits a button in main that I’m working on in my branch, since otherwise, we’ll end up with a merge conflict, but otherwise, if the updates don’t conflict and don’t have any impact on one another, can’t I not accept those updates to avoid extra noise in my branch?

Hi Ian,

When you update from main, those changes shouldn’t show up when you go to merge your branch. The team is aware of some cases where that happens, however, and is actively fixing them. If you wouldn’t mind, could you tell me more about the kind of changes your colleague was making? Could you DM me a screenshot of what you’re seeing?

Even better, if you could share the main file with “support-share@figma.com”, and DM me the link to the file + the names of the branches having issues, our team can dig and debug this.

To answer the question you asked - if you’re working on completely separate components, you should be able to merge without updating from main. You’ll only need to update from main if main has changes that conflict with changes on your branch (and Figma will disable the merge button until you have). Otherwise you can merge without updating.