Overhaul branch filtering guide with comprehensive examples

[rosieyohannan]

Description

Completely overhauled the branch filtering documentation page to provide a comprehensive how-to guide covering all methods for running work on specific branches in CircleCI.

Reasons

The existing page was very outdated and only covered one method (branch filtering for job steps). The Linear issue DOC-64 requested improvements to make this a proper how-to guide with examples for all the different ways to run work on specific branches.

Changes made:

• Restructured as a how-to guide following the template structure with prerequisites, numbered sections, best practices, and troubleshooting
• Added comprehensive coverage of all 6 methods for branch-specific execution:
  1. Branch filters for workflows (with regex patterns, multiple branches, only/ignore)
  2. Expression-based job filters (with operators and complex conditions)
  3. Conditional workflows with when/unless clauses
  4. Branch filtering for job steps
  5. Schedule triggers with branch filters
  6. Dynamic configuration for advanced branch logic
• Included practical examples for each method with real-world use cases
• Added common patterns section showing typical workflows (test everywhere/deploy on main, separate workflows by branch type, expensive tests on important branches only)
• Added troubleshooting section addressing common issues users face
• Improved SEO with better page description (70-160 characters as required)
• Fixed typo in original page description (fileters -> filters)
• Added proper cross-references to related documentation pages

Content checks

Preview your changes:

• View the Vale linter results, select the ci/circleci: lint job at the bottom of your PR. You will be redirected to the vale/lint job output in CircleCI.
• Preview your changes, select the ci/circleci: build job at the bottom of your PR and you will be redirected to CircleCI. Select the Artifacts tab and select index.html to open a preview version of the docs site built for your latest commit.

Content structure:

• Break up walls of text by adding paragraph breaks.
• Consider if the content could benefit from more structure, such as lists or tables, to make it easier to consume.
• Consider whether the content would benefit from more subsections (h2-h6 headings) to make it easier to consume.
• Include relevant backlinks to other CircleCI docs/pages.

Formatting:

• Keep the title between 20 and 70 characters.
• Check all headings h1-h6 are in sentence case (only first letter is capitalized).

Related

Resolves Linear issue DOC-64

Linear Issue: DOC-64

  

[linear]

DOC-64 Improve branch filtering page