Which practice includes frequently committing code to prevent significant drift, competing changes, and merge conflicts?

The practice that involves frequently committing code is known as Continuous Integration. This approach is essential for software development because it encourages developers to integrate their changes back to the main branch as often as possible, ideally multiple times a day. By frequently merging code changes, teams can detect and resolve potential conflicts early, preventing significant drift from the main codebase.

Continuous Integration helps maintain the integrity of the code by running automated tests on each change, ensuring that new code does not break existing functionality. This process also allows developers to collaborate more effectively, as it reduces the likelihood of encountering competing changes that could lead to extensive merge conflicts. Overall, Continuous Integration streamlines the development process and enhances collaboration among team members, ultimately leading to a more efficient workflow and higher-quality code.

Other practices in the choices such as Continuous Development, Continuous Delivery, and Continuous Testing, while related to the software development lifecycle, focus on different aspects. Continuous Development refers to the ongoing process of adding new features and improvements to the software. Continuous Delivery ensures that code is always in a deployable state, while Continuous Testing focuses on the automated testing of code throughout the development process. Though all these practices are important, Continuous Integration is specifically centered on the frequent committing and merging of code.