Best practices for version control

The main collaborative development of ManiVault takes place on github.com/ManiVaultStudio using git. Here is a collection of best practices for version control and collaboration within this project:

• Follow the GitHub flow development strategy:
  1. Create a branch
  2. Make changes
  3. Create a pull request
  4. Address review comments and ensure all workflows pass
  5. Merge your pull request
  6. Delete your branch
  • For additional context, have a look at other development strategies like more trunk-based approaches or git-flow
• Keep your commit messages clean:
  • Keep commits small and focused
  • Write descriptive commit messages
• Prefer squash-commits over merge-commits:
  • When merging a feature branch into main, squash your commits unless you have a specific reason not to
    • Examples for when not to squash: merging from a feature branch into another feature branch to keep a full commit history for easier reviewing on PRs to master
  • You can change the merge type on the PR page
• Release branches should be regarded as frozen:
  • Do not develop new features based on release branches
  • Do not branch of from release branches
  • Only cherry-pick changes (e.g. fixes) from main to release branches
• Avoid committing generated or binary files by keeping .gitignore file up-to-date
• Make your life easier with a git GUI client and the git cheat-sheet