Suggested Workflow for the Code Repository

Wherein I lay down the law on how to git it done.

There are a great many good suggested workflows, e.g. the Successful git branching model. A slightly opposing view is discussed by Randy Fay where he favours a Rebase workflow. One might want to look at both article and try to understand them.

I have come to believe in the rebase workflow and hence I suggest we do the following:

  • Branch master is a branch that should in most situations have (almost) fully functional code. This branch can have tags attached so that you can go back and reproduce your work. – Currently only the central integrator (SAR) can push to it.

  • Any given feature, bugfix, enhancement should be worked on in a (local) branch. Feel free to push them to the central repo (as that branch) but nobody has any right to expect to find workable code in there.

    git checkout master
git checkout -b mynewfeature # same as git branch mynewfeature ; git checkout mynewfeature
# do work ...
git commit # maybe even a few times
git push origin mynewfeature  # if you want a backup

  • The objective here is that your code will at somepoint work with the rest of the code (which, of course, is also evolving). Hence to effect that merge at some future date, you need to stay on top of things. You do this by ‘rebasing’ all your as yet unmerged changes on the most recent version of master.

    git fetch
git rebase origin/master # you do this while still checked out on mynewfeature

  • If time comes to make the feature, bugfix, whatever available, tell me. Make sure your branch is (a) rebased on top of recent master (b) pushed to the central repo so I can get to it. This is what I will do:

    git checkout master
git merge --no-ff mynewfeature
git push

  • As a convention for the use of branches I suggest:

    • master the slighlty more sacrosanct branch

    • hg-pages do not touch! this is a special orphan branch that is used for auto-documentation

    • firas/xxx replace firas with your name or initials and xxx if you find that there is a feature that you are working on at the moment. A branch that is labelled with a name is totally off-limits for anyone else to force push to! We have log files. And we will find you.