Branch names are the first thing reviewers see in your PR list. Conventions that work at scale:
feature/<short-slug> — new functionality. feature/oauth-google.
fix/<short-slug> — bug fix. fix/null-deref-search.
chore/<short-slug> — non-feature maintenance. chore/bump-tailwind.
docs/<short-slug> — docs only.
refactor/<short-slug> — no behavior change.
hotfix/<short-slug> — production patch off a release.
Avoid: spaces, underscores, mixed case (FeatureAuth), ticket-only names (PROJ-1234 — humans can't grep that).
Pair branch names with ticket numbers in the commit body or PR description, not the branch name.
Many teams enforce these via a pre-receive hook server-side.