Pick Your Git Branching Strategy

When working out the best strategy for your team, there are a few key questions that will influence your decision. This session runs through and gives advice on how to put together a workflow that works for your particular scenario

Transcript

1. Pick Your Git
   Branching Strategy
   Lorna Mitchell, October 2015
   

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2. Git Branching
   

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3. A Branch is a Label
   Take a look in .git/refs/heads/
   • A branch is a pointer to a commit.
   • You commit on a branch, the commit is
   created and the pointer updated.
   

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4. Commits Aren't "On" Branches
   

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5. Commits Aren't "On" Branches
   

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6. Sample Branching Strategies
   • Git Flow: http://lrnja.net/1ebawKU
   • GitHub Flow: http://lrnja.net/1Gr29Jn
   • Atlassian blog: http://lrnja.net/1BSFQcQ
   • Docs from GitLab: http://lrnja.net/1AiPxQJ
   Some common elements between these
   

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7. Branching Strategy
   Ingredients List
   

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8. Topic Branches Pattern
   Starting something new? Use a branch.
   

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9. Topic Branches Pattern
   Merge from master into feature before merging
   

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10. Topic Branches Pattern
    Rebase branch onto master before merging
    

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11. Branch Naming
    • master default branch name
    • develop often used for bleeding edge branch
    Configure your repo accordingly
    

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12. Hotfix Pattern
    Branch off, commit once, merge with --no-ff
    • makes it very clear what happened
    • easily merge the branch back upstream if
    needed
    • makes it possible to cleanly undo without
    losing anything
    

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13. Hotfix Pattern
    

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14. Environment Branches
    Maintain one branch per platform
    • branch always reflects current state of
    platform
    • plays well with automated deployment
    

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15. Environment Branches
    

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16. Tagging for Releases
    Git has two types of tags:
    • simple tags are just a label, like a branch that
    doesn't advance
    • annotated tags are an object, they can
    contain messages
    git tag -a v2.11 -m "v2.11 with caching"
    Then push the tag
    

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17. Git Branches
    

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18. Resources
    • These slides: http://lornajane.net/resources
    • My git book: http://gitworkbook.com/
    

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