Branching, Versioning & Release Strategy

This project follows a strict GitFlow workflow fully automated via GitHub Actions. We prioritize branch protection, ensuring that no direct pushes are ever made to develop or main.

🚀 The Golden Rule

Never modify version.properties manually. The CI/CD pipelines manage version numbers based on the branch names and PR labels.

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♻️ The Development Lifecycle

1. Start with an Issue

• Open a GitHub Issue describing the Feature, Bug, or Release.
• Automation: The bot creates a branch for you.
• Auto-PR: For Releases and Hotfixes, the bot automatically opens the Pull Request to main.

Issue Label	Branch Created	Base Branch	Target PR Branch
feature	feature/EXSHAPP-xxxx	develop	(Manual to develop)
bug	bugfix/EXSHAPP-xxxx	develop	(Manual to develop)
release	release/EXSHAPP-xxxx	develop	main (Automatic)
hotfix	hotfix/EXSHAPP-xxxx	main	main (Automatic)

2. Standard Development (Features/Bugs)

• Checkout the bot-created branch.
• Work and push commits.
• Open a PR to develop manually when ready.

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📦 The Release Process (Step-by-Step)

We treat releases as a specific type of issue.

Phase 1: Preparation

1. Create an Issue titled "Release v0.12.0" (or similar) with label release.
2. Bot Action:
   • Creates branch release/EXSHAPP-xxxx from develop.
   • Automatically opens a PR from this branch to main.
3. Bot Action (in PR):
   • The Prepare Version workflow runs on the release/ branch (which is unprotected).
   • It removes -SNAPSHOT from version.properties.
   • It applies Major version bump if the "Major" label is present.
   • It commits this change to the PR.

Phase 2: Publishing

1. Review the PR (ensure checks pass).
2. Merge the PR into main.
3. Bot Action: The Create Release workflow triggers on main:
   • Builds signed APK.
   • Publishes GitHub Release with automated Changelog.

Phase 3: Sync Back (Backmerge)

Once main is updated, we must update develop with the new version tag and prepare for the next cycle.

1. Bot Action: The Sync workflow triggers automatically.
   • Creates a temporary branch sync/main-to-develop-xxx.
   • Merges main into it.
   • Bumps the version (e.g., 0.12.0 -> 0.13.0-SNAPSHOT).
   • Opens a PR to develop.
2. Manual Action: You review and merge this "Sync" PR to update develop.

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🚑 Hotfix Process

1. Create an Issue with label hotfix.
2. Bot Action: Creates hotfix/ branch from main and opens PR to main.
3. Fix the bug and push to that branch.
4. Bot Action (in PR): Automatically increments Patch version (e.g., 0.12.0 -> 0.12.1) and removes snapshot.
5. Merge to main -> Triggers Release -> Triggers Sync PR to develop.

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🛡️ Branch Protection

• main: Protected. No direct pushes.
• develop: Protected. No direct pushes.
• release/*, hotfix/*, feature/*: Unprotected (Bots can write here).