#Branching

WWKG uses a Git-inspired branching model. Every change creates a new commit that records exactly what changed, who made the change, and when. Branches are named pointers to the latest commit in a timeline.

Each branch has a stable opaque BranchId plus a mutable BranchName slug path. Users typically work with names like main or experiment; UUID-based branch IDs are returned in metadata and can also be used as refs.

#Creating branches

Create a branch from the current HEAD of main:

wwkg client branch create experiment

Fork from a specific branch:

wwkg client branch create experiment --from staging

#Listing branches

wwkg client branch list

#Querying a branch

All query and load commands accept a --branch flag:

wwkg client query "SELECT * WHERE { ?s ?p ?o }" --branch experiment
wwkg load data.ttl --branch experiment

See the Querying guide for additional ways to specify a branch (HTTP headers, URL parameters, in-query pragmas).

#Cross-branch queries

Compare data across branches using the SPARQL BRANCH pattern:

SELECT ?branch ?name WHERE {
  VALUES ?branch {
    <urn:wwkg:branch:660e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000>
    <urn:wwkg:branch:660e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440003>
  }
  BRANCH ?branch {
    <http://example.org/Alice> <http://example.org/name> ?name .
  }
}

#Delta queries — what changed

See which triples were inserted or deleted between two points in history:

SELECT ?op ?s ?p ?o WHERE {
  DELTA FROM "main~3" TO "main" {
    ?op ?s ?p ?o .
  }
}

The ~N suffix means “N commits before HEAD”. ?op binds to wwkg:Insert or wwkg:Delete.

#History queries

Query the commit log of a branch:

SELECT ?commit ?timestamp ?author ?message WHERE {
  HISTORY "main" {
    ?commit wwkg:timestamp ?timestamp ;
            wwkg:author ?author ;
            wwkg:message ?message .
  }
}
ORDER BY DESC(?timestamp) LIMIT 10

#Merging

Merge a branch into another (typically main):

MERGE BRANCH "experiment" INTO "main"

WWKG performs a three-way merge: it finds the common ancestor of the two branches, computes the deltas from ancestor to each branch head, and applies both sets of changes. If both branches modified the same triple in conflicting ways, the merge reports a conflict.

Merging is atomic — either the merge commit is fully created and the target branch advances, or the merge fails and nothing changes.

#Branch naming conventions

#Deleting branches

wwkg client branch delete experiment

This removes the branch pointer. The underlying commits remain available as long as they are referenced by other branches.