Bug: Dev_new_gui and main branch divergence — no regular sync process

[mrveiss]

Problem

During the v0.2.0 release, Dev_new_gui was 399 commits ahead and 5 commits behind origin/main, resulting in 45 merge conflicts across backend, frontend, infrastructure, and Docker files.

Root Cause

No regular sync process between Dev_new_gui (working branch) and main (release branch). PRs were merged to main independently (Docker Build Cloud, Dependabot bumps) without being synced back to Dev_new_gui.

Impact

• Release blocked until all 45 conflicts manually resolved
• Risk of losing main-only changes (deps bumps, CI workflows)
• Dependabot PRs targeting main create stale-base PRs with massive diffs

Suggested Fix

• Configure Dependabot to target Dev_new_gui instead of main
• Establish periodic sync: merge main → Dev_new_gui after any direct-to-main merge
• Or: stop merging directly to main — all work goes through Dev_new_gui → main releases

Discovered During

v0.2.0 release preparation

[mrveiss]

Fixed in PR #2482 (merged). Added GitHub Actions workflow to auto-sync main→Dev_new_gui.