RidgeRun Developer Manual - Methodologies - Gitflow

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About Gitflow Methodologies

A "gitflow" methodology is no more than a set of practices that define the workflow for software development involving a version control system like git. RidgeRun follows a "homegrown" methodology based on the feature branch model. This model has several advantages:

• It is very well suited for project scheduled on release cycles.
• Allows to maintain a stable code base for all developers involved after each release, which synergizes very well with continuous integration practices.
• Feature branches allow to implement pull requests, a type of code review.
• Feature development isolation. Each developer works on its branch and does not affect the development of other branches by other developers.
• There are very well defined roles for a git branch, for example, there is the development branch, the master branches, the hotfix branches, etc.

Overview

The RidgeRun git worflow can be summarized in the figure below:

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The process goes as follows:

1. The project starts with a single commit in the ​ main branch, from where the ​ develop branch is started.
2. From the ​ develop branch, developers branch out ​ features​ , which eventually get merged back into ​develop​.
3. Eventually, when the time comes, a new release branch is branched out from ​ develop​. The ​ release branch is tested thoroughly and, when ready, is merged into ​main and into develop​.
4. The merge into ​ main​ is considered a release and must be tagged accordingly.
5. The process repeats from point 2.
6. If eventually a critical issue is found on the ​main branch, a ​ hotfix is branched out from it, fixed, and merged back into ​ main​ and ​ develop​ .

Concepts

Main branch

• Formerly called "master".
• It is always​ stable, i.e: should always build and run.
• Never do a commit directly
• Never allowed to do forced push ( git push -f ) on it.

Initial commit

• The content is typically a README.md containing a description of the project.
• The typical commit message is:

Initialize project.

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Initial develop commit

• Purely aesthetic.
• Created with:

git commit --allow-empty -m "Initialize develop"

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Release merges

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• Must contain an annotated tag.
• If the hosting serving allows it, it must be accompanied with release notes.
• The typical message is:

Release v0.1.0 includes:
* Support for feature X
* Fix for bug Y

Develop branch

• Contains the latest development state.
• It is always​ stable, i.e: should always build and run.
• May not be in perfect shape (mid refactor, for example).
• Never do commits directly.
• Never do forced push ( git push -f ) on it.

Feature, Release and Hotfix Merges

• Should follow the ​ Conventional Commit​ standard.
• Helps to auto generate release notes.
• Should always be done with ​non-fast-forward​ option as in the following:

git checkout develop
git merge --no-ff feature/refactor-ui-to-mvc

Feature branches

• Are named as ​ feature/xxx-xxx-xxx .
• Name should complete: ​ This feature will _______.
• Uses hyphens to separate words.
• Minimum change that generates value by itself.
• Don't turn it into another develop branch (infinite extension).
• No overlapping features:

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• Every branch should be rebased to avoid overlaps between features (see Rebasing feature branches section).
• First merge (after approval) gets priority.
• It is completely okay to have a single commit feature branch.

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Some particular considerations on the feature branch model

Rebasing feature branches

Let's assume this scenario, person A and person B are working in parallel each one on individual feature branches that diverged from the same commit in the development branch. Now, let's assume person A got his/her feature branch approved first than person B. Once person A merges the feature branch in the development branch, person A should tells person B that he/she needs to rebase his/her feature branch, so person B can follow these commands:

 git fetch # update you local repo from the remote repo
 git checkout develop
 git pull
 git checkout feature/person-b-feature
 git rebase develop # This may arise merge conflicts that have to be solved
 #Do your commit: git add, git commit...
 git push -f

NOTE: the -f option means a destructive change. If someone is using your branch it will break it.

The following figure illustrates this process:

But why rebasing features branches is required? There are several reasons to it:

• Makes it easier to track issues in the development branch, since this branch will have clear points where the feature branches where merged (see Merging feature branches).
• Each developer will have the latest code base in its local repo which implicitly allows for testing the feature that was originally developed in another system. Sometimes this helps find issues.

Merging feature branches

 git checkout develop
 git merge --no-ff feature/awesome-feature # Creates merge commit

Commit messages standard

Our preferred standard for commit messages is a "homegrown" variant of ​Conventional Commits​.

Versioning standard

We encourage the use of ​Semantic Versioning​.