Branch policies in Azure Repos provide a way to enforce code review policies before a pull request can be completed and merged into a target branch. This ensures that all code changes are submitted through a pull request and reviewed by other members of the team before being deployed by the CI/CD workflow.

Branch policies can be configured to require specific reviewers, require a minimum number of approvals, and block direct pushes to the target branch. This helps to ensure that code changes are thoroughly reviewed and meet the established standards before being merged into the target branch.