Git workflow

[GamelinAl]

Hello,
We need to agree on a git workflow for pyAML.

One exemple of such workflow is described here:
https://gist.github.com/digitaljhelms/4287848

What was suggested during last maintainer meetings is that merge requests to "main" branch should be approuve by at least:

• 1 WP leader
• at least 1 other maintainer

[gubaidulinvadim]

This is good. I would also suggest that it would be good that any two approvers should be from two different labs.

[JeanLucPons]

I don't know if such a configuration is possible (check approvers origin).

[TeresiaOlsson]

Maybe no check is needed but it's more something to consider when choosing who you want as reviewer when you make a pull request?

[gubaidulinvadim]

I don't think this is possible on GitHub or GitLab to check for that automatically. It's just to have a practice like that for good faith. Otherwise, we might run into reverts of merges.

[TeresiaOlsson]

I think it would be good to have some way to know which development has been tested at real machines and which has just been tested at simulator/virtual accelerator. I don't think it has to be tested at all machines. Just so you know that someone has actually used it in live mode and it worked.

In CATAP they had a main branch for what had been tested at machine and a dev branch for things that hadn't.

But I guess this could also be handled with releases? For example, at HZB we provide several containers for pyAT to our users. We build one for each new release (which we then give the latest tag) and one every night from the main branch. Then the users can choose if they want to use the release version that will give them a stable environment or the dev version with the newest features.

[TeresiaOlsson]

Maybe in the example @GamelinAl posted the stable branch would be the one that has been tested at live machines?

[gubaidulinvadim]

It just depends on your definition of `production'. In principle, stable branch is used for releases. So, most users-only people will see only stable branch. (That's how we do it in mbtrack2, stable is used for releases only and we, internally, are actually using develop/master most of the time because it has latest features).

[TeresiaOlsson]

Ah, yes. I liked that approach you had in mbtrack2 with the stable branch.

[gubaidulinvadim]

I think since there are no objections we can fix that we will follow the workflow suggested by Alexis: https://gist.github.com/digitaljhelms/4287848. We can close this discussion.

[TeresiaOlsson]

Only thing I think is that we should have main instead of master but that I think is standard now on new repositories.

[GamelinAl]

Then at the next maintainers meeting, we can validate that:

We follow the git workflow is described here:
https://gist.github.com/digitaljhelms/4287848

With a branch called "main" instead of "master".
And that merge requests to "main" branch should be approuve by at least:

• 1 WP leader
• at least 1 other maintainer

[GamelinAl]

The proposition of the above git workflow was validated during the 04/07/2025 maintainers meeting.