User scripts for easily managing feature branches and hotfixes.

This is loosely based on the Git Flow branching model, with a couple of noteable changes. Essentially Git Flow's develop is our master, Git Flow's master is our stable, and there are no release branches and our hotfix branch names all have a prefix.

master is the active development branch, and what our development server has checked out.

stable is the branch which is deployed on the production machines. You should always be able to check out this branch and get "bug-free" production code. This branch is always ready-to-go and should always be deployed as soon as it's changed

feature branches are named after the feature you're developing and branched from master. When finished, the feature branch is merged back into master with --no-ff (so we preserve the merge commit) and deleted.

hotfix branches are named hotfix-name and branched from stable. When finished, the hotfix branch is merged back into stable with --no-ff so we preserve the merge commit. We attempt to merge it back into master as well, but if it's going to get messy just bail.

The production machines always run off the stable branch. When deploying, you need to:

• Merge stable into master (and vice-versa). This ensures that the two code paths come together relatively frequently. This also guarantees that we'll pick up any stray hotfixes that didn't get merged back.

• Create a tag on stable for keeping track of deploys

feature <command> [branch name]

Automates some of the git commands for dealing with feature branches. Any command that is run with missing arguments will just print the help and exit. Any command that modifies the working dir should warn the user and exit(1) if the working tree is dirty; automatically managing the stash is frought with danger.

feature start my-awesome-thing

If the branch my-awesome-thing does not exist, a new feature branch from master will be cerated after a confirmation, and runs a git checkout my-awesome-thing to drop you on the new branch.

feature switch your-neato-thing

Assuming the branch your-neato-thing exists, it checks out that branch and informs you about any stashes saved on that branch.

feature finish your-neato-thing

Merges the feature branch back in to master, using --no-ff to ensure it's a non-fast-forward merge. If the merge is successful, delete the branch - you shouldn't ever merge in a feature branch twice, and we don't need the extra cruft lying around.

feature status

Shows a graphical commit log of the history between the current branch and the remote version of the current branch (the upstream).

feature stashes

Lists the stashes saved on the current branch if any. -v shows all stashes on all branches.

hotfix <command> [branch name]

Automates the process of fixing a bug on the live site, similar to the feature script with a few differences. Any command that is run with missing arguments will just print the help and exit

hotfix start my-sweet-fix

Makes a new branch from stable named hotfix_my-sweet-fix. Prepending the name with hotfix_ allows easy filtering.

hotfix switch my-other-fix

Switches hotfix branches. Assuming the branch hotfix_my-other-fix exists, it checks out that branch and informs you about any stashes saved on that branch.

hotfix finish my-other-fix

Merges the hotfix branch back into stable with --no-ff. Also does a test merge back into master. If it seems like it will merge cleanly, it does it. Otherwise bail out. Possibly sendmail the admins or just inform the user that they need to merge it into master and fix the conflicts.