Do you push your code to a repository where you have some CI set up? Or is it just local? If it's the latter and you just run tests on the command line then yea maybe you don't need branches. On the other hand I find branches can be useful if I have a larger refactor going on and I'm not too sure what it's going to look like in the end. Then I can keep it on a branch and compare it to "last known stable commit," and if something else comes up that needs to be fixed right away I can put my larger refactor on hold and fix it, and come back to the larger refactor.