git-workflow.md

The EasyData Git Workflow

Here's our suggestion for a reliable git workflow that works well in small team settings; e.g. when using Easydata in a group setting.

Git configuration

If you haven't yet done so, please follow the instrucitons in our Git Configuration Guide first.

Git Workflow

We suggest you start each day by doing this:

Where was I? What was I doing? Did I check it in?

Sometimes, you stop work without checking things back in to the repo. Now, before you do any additional work, is the time to fix that.

git branch   # what branch am I on?
git status   # are there any files that need checking in?
git add -p   # accept or reject parts of the modified files
git commit -m "put your commit message here"

Did I do any work elsewhere?

Did you make changes to your personal fork, but on a different machine? Make sure your local branch is up-to-date with your personal fork (origin):

git checkout {{cookiecutter.default_branch}}
git fetch origin --prune
git merge origin/{{cookiecutter.default_branch}}

What happened upstream?

Did someone make changes to the upstream repo in your absense? Let's fetch and merge those changes

git checkout {{cookiecutter.default_branch}}
git fetch upstream --prune
git merge upstream/{{cookiecutter.default_branch}}
git push origin {{cookiecutter.default_branch}}
make update_environment

Am I working from the latest {{cookiecutter.default_branch}}?

Now that your {{cookiecutter.default_branch}} branch is up-to-date with both origin and upstream, you should use it to update your local working branches. If you are already developing in a branch called, e.g. my_branch, do this before writing any more code:

git checkout my_branch
git merge {{cookiecutter.default_branch}}
git push origin my_branch

Clean up the junk

With your local {{cookiecutter.default_branch}}, origin/{{cookiecutter.default_branch}} and upstream/{{cookiecutter.default_branch}} all in sync, we like to clean up any old branches that are fully merged (and hence, can be deleted without data loss.)

git branch --merged {{cookiecutter.default_branch}}
git branch -d <name_of_merged_branch>

A really great feature of git branch -d is that it will refuse to remove a branch that hasn't been fully merged into another. Thus it's safe to use without any fear of data loss.

Start the day

Once you've finished all your merge tasks, you can create a clean working branch from the latest {{cookiecutter.default_branch}} by doing a:

git checkout {{cookiecutter.default_branch}}
git checkout -b new_branch_name

That's it! Do you have any suggestions for improvements to this workflow? Drop us a line or file an issue in our easydata issue tracker.