continuous-delivery.md

• Introduction
• Branch Types
  • Environment Branches
  • Feature Branches
  • Hotfix Branches
• Contribution Rules
• Instructions
  • Create a New Feature
  • Manage Hotfixes
  • Create a Deployment

Introduction

This branching strategy is based on Gitlab Flow. We will use this strategy for projects that require continuous delivery.

Branch Types

There are three types of branches:

• Environment
• Feature
• Hotfix

All environment branches should be protected; no one should be able to push commits directly to them. All non-protected branches are created by developers working on specific tasks and should be deleted once merged.

Environment Branches

You will have two environment branches on your server:

• main
• production

Any update to the main branch will trigger a deployment to the staging environment, and any update to the production branch will trigger a deployment to the production environment. The production branch should never be ahead of the main branch.

Updates to the main branch should trigger a CI action to create a request for merging the main with the production branch. This merge request may contain a list of tasks for requirements such as manual testing, which should all be marked as done for the maintainer(s) to be able to accept the request.

Feature Branches

Contributors will mainly work on feature branches. After their work is finished, they will request a merge with the main branch.

%%{init: { 'theme': 'base', 'gitGraph': {'showCommitLabel':false,'mainBranchOrder': 1}} }%%
      gitGraph
      commit
      commit
      branch production
      branch feat-1 order: 2
      checkout feat-1
      commit
      commit
      checkout main
      merge feat-1
      checkout production
      merge main
      checkout main

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Hotfix Branches

A hotfix branch should be first merged with the main branch and then cherry-picked into production.

%%{init: { 'theme': 'base', 'gitGraph': {'showCommitLabel':false,'mainBranchOrder': 1}} }%%
      gitGraph
      commit
      commit
      branch production
      branch feat-1 order: 2
      checkout feat-1
      commit
      commit
      checkout main
      merge feat-1
      checkout production
      merge main
      checkout main
      branch feat-2 order: 3
      commit
      checkout main
      merge feat-2
      checkout production
      branch hotfix-1 order: 4
      commit
      checkout main
      merge hotfix-1
      checkout production
      merge hotfix-1
      merge main

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Contribution Rules

See the contribution rules document.

Instructions

Create a New Feature

1. Create a local branch:

$ git checkout -b topic-foo main

2. Push your changes to a remote branch with the same name:

$ git push origin topic-foo 

3. Create a merge request from your new branch to the main branch.

4. Delete your branch after your merge request is approved.

Manage Hotfixes

1. Create a local branch from the production branch:

$ git checkout -b hotfix-bug production

2. Push your changes to a remote branch with the same name:

$ git push origin hotfix-bug

3. Create a merge request from your hotfix branch to the main branch.

4. A developer with sufficient permissions may accept the request after all tests are passed and successfully deployed to the staging environment.

5. Create a merge request from your hotfix branch with the production branch.

6. A developer with sufficient permissions may accept the request.

7. Delete the hotfix branch on the remote repository once merged.

Create a Deployment

Updating the production and the main branches will trigger a deployment.