Hotfix workflows

workflows.md

Hotfix workflows

"Traditional" gitflow workflow

1. Create hotfix-branch from release
2. Commit to hotfix-branch
3. Merge hotfix-branch into both release and develop

Pros

• Simple; everybody understands it

Cons

• release and develop have different histories due to differing merge parents (not really an issue if you re-branch release every time)
• Potential conflicts when merging into develop
• Risk of merging release-only commits (e.g. version bumps) into develop

Rebase workflow

1. Create hotfix-branch from develop
2. Commit to hotfix-branch
3. Merge hotfix-branch into develop
4. Rebase (or cherry-pick) hotfix-branch onto release¹

Pros

• release and develop have the same histories (release is fast-forwarded)
• No risk of merging unwanted commits into release or develop

Cons

• Many people are uncomfortable with rebase (although in this case the rebase is non-destructive)

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¹ Using something like:

$ git rebase --onto hotfix-branch develop release
First, rewinding head to replay your work on top of it...
Fast-forwarded release to hotfix-branch.

Thanks for the post. I guess the git command should be fixed to:

$ git rebase --onto release develop hotfix-branch

so that hotfix-branch can be transplanted to release

@Alan-designer is right.
$ git rebase --onto release develop hotfix-branch
one can see in
https://git-scm.com/docs/git-rebase