Creating a Release from a Bugfix Branch

Assumptions

• All changes to be included in the release have been made on the bugfix-branch
• The bugfix-branch is a branch off of a release-branch (e.g. release/v3.25.0)

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Steps

1. Commit all your changes on the bugfix-branch

2. Check out the release-branch (the branch that the bugfix-branch came off of in the first place).

   $ git checkout release/v3.25.0
   

3. Create and checkout a new branch which will contain the bugfix changes and the release. We'll call this new branch the bugfix-release branch.

   $ git branch release/v3.25.1    # create the bugfix-release branch
   $ git checkout release/v3.25.1  # checkout the bugfix-release branch
   

4. Merge the bugfix-branch changes into the bugfix-release branch and squash the changes into one big change set.

   $ git merge --squash bugfix-branch
   

5. Fix up the version.txt file

   $ git_current_branch > version.txt
   $ git add version.txt
   

   Note: git_current_branch should be an alias defined as:

   $ alias git_current_branch='git symbolic-ref -q HEAD --short'
   

6. Commit all changes to the bugfix-release branch

   $ git commit -m "Big description of the bugfix changes"
   

   Now all the changes from the bugfix-branch are in the bugfix-release (e.g. release/v3.25.1) branch.

7. Push everything to the origin (GitHub)

   $ git push origin --all
   

8. Remove the local bugfix-branch whose changes you've now merged and committed to the bugfix-release branch.

   $ git branch -D bugfix-branch
   

9. Remove the remote bugfix-branch from the origin repository (GitHub)

   $ git push origin --delete bugfix-branch
   

10. Create a tag in the bugfix-release branch

    $ git checkout *<bugfix-release>*
    $ git checkout release/v3.25.1
    $ git_current_branch > version.txt
    $ git add version.txt
    $ git commit -m "Created v3.25.1"
    $ git tag -a v3.25.1 -m "Tagging v3.25.1"
    $ git push --tags origin release/v3.25.1
    

11. Go to https://github.com, log in, and create a release from the tag

    Releases --> Draft a new release --> Select tag

    • Provide a Title and Description
    • Publish the release

12. Make sure you don't leave your local git repository with the release branch checked out.

    You do not want to make further changes to that branch.

    Also, you most likely (but not always) want your bug fix to go into the master branch so that it gets included in any future releases.

    $ git checkout master
    $ git merge release/v3.25.1 # substitute your bugfix release
    $ git_current_branch > version.txt
    $ git add version.txt
    $ git commit -m "Updated version.txt"
    $ git push origin --all
    

13. As always, further feature changes should go in a feature branch (off of master) and further bugfix changes should go in a bugfix branch (off of the release for which the bugs are being fixed).