flow – Engineer On The Loose

I’ve been using Git as my main source control system for a few years now. I’ve finally gotten around to documenting a set of commands that support a github-flow style workflow. A google search for github flow will turn up a wealth of links pro and con for github-flow vs git-flow. I like the simplicity of github-flow and how it better supports continuous delivery and agile methodologies compared to git-flow.

Here are a couple of introductory links to github-flow:

https://guides.github.com/introduction/flow/
http://scottchacon.com/2011/08/31/github-flow.html

Below are the raw commands I use to support a github-flow workflow. These could be wrapped in aliases or scripts to lessen the typing and insure consistent use across a team.

Git Process description

master branch is always buildable and deployable
Create local branches off of origin/master
Use descriptive names for feature branches
Include tracking number at the beginning of the feature branch
Push feature branches to remote often
Open a pull request at any time
Merge from origin/master often
Create a pull request before checking into master
Rebase feature branch off of origin/master after pull request is OK’ed
Merge –squash feature branch onto master
Push to origin/master
Alternative is rebase -i off of origin/master and push directly to origin HEAD:master
Delete old local feature branch
Delete old remote feature branch

Goal is to have master branch buildable and deployable at all time. Anything checked into master must be at least reviewed and pass automated testing.

Never create new features directly in master.
Create a feature branch for creating new assets.

Refresh the source branch, usually master, before branching

git checkout master
git fetch --prune
git merge origin/master

git checkout master
git pull -p

Create a new feature branch to work the issue. Add the feature or issue tracking number to the start of the feature branch name.

git checkout master
git pull -p
git checkout -b TR-0001-new-feature

git fetch -p

The following command creates a new feature branch off of origin/master

git checkout -b TR-0001-new-feature origin/master

See http://www.lornajane.net/posts/2014/understanding-tracking-branches-in-git for comments on tracking branches. Setting the tracking branch sets the default push/pull tracking branch. We want to use origin/TR-0001-new-feature instead of origin/master as the remote tracking branch.

Investigation indicates the default push schema pushes to the same named remote branch instead of the origin/master. That is if you create a branch off of origin/master

git checkout -b TR-0001-new-feature origin/master

and then push that new feature branch to the remote

git push origin TR-0001-new-feature

then the default push git push pushes to the same named remote branch.

Looking at http://git-scm.com/docs/git-config the default config for push is simple.

git config --global push.default simple
git config --global push.default current

The result is that it seems to be ok to branch off of origin/master and then push the new branch to the remote. The result is simple pushes will go to the similarly named remote branch.

Immediately push the feature to github so it is visible to other developers.

git push origin TR-0001-new-feature

Create new feature while on feature branch.

write code here
git add [.][filename]
git commit -a -m"commit message here"
git commit -m"commit message here" [.][filename]

Merge feature off of master on a regular basis.

git fetch --prune
git merge origin/master

Push the feature branch to github early and often.

git push origin TR-0001-new-feature

git push

Build and run automated tests regularly

When you think you are done issue a pull request on github against your pushed feature branch.

When the feature has passed review then squash and commit to master:

First update local master

git checkout master

Fetch remote to update origin/master

git fetch -p
git merge origin/master

git pull

Rebase feature branch off of origin/master

git checkout TR-0001-new-feature
git rebase origin/master

Merge feature onto master

git checkout master
git merge --squash TR-0001-new-feature
git commit -a -m"TR-0001-new-feature
git push origin master

As an alternative you can checkout the feature branch, do an interactive rebase off of master to squash all commits and give a single commit message, then push directly to origin/master.

git checkout TR-0001-new-feature
git fetch --prune to update origin/master
git rebase -i origin/master

Pick and Squash as appropriate
Edit commit message as appropriate

git push origin HEAD:master

Delete unused branches

git branch -D TR-0001-new-feature
git push origin --delete TR-0001-new-feature