Development Process

This document describes the workflow used in the repository, including branching conventions, merge rules, and release flow.

1. Branch Structure

        flowchart TB
    %% Main branch
    subgraph MAIN_BRANCH["main"]
        MAIN_MR["MR<br/>dev → main"]
        MAIN["main<br/>Official mainline.<br/>Receives releases.<br/>Only gets changes from dev."]
    end

    %% Development branch
    subgraph DEV_BRANCH["dev"]
        DEV_MR["MR<br/>feature/abc → dev"]
        DEV["dev<br/>Development branch.<br/><br/>Must contain only commits that passed sanity checks.<br/>All merges are squash + fast-forward."]
    end

    %% Feature branches
    subgraph FEATURE_BRANCHES["Feature branches"]
        F["feature/abc<br/>Developers branch from dev.<br/>Work in multiple commits."]
    end

    %% Feature → Dev
    DEV --> F
    F-- "Submit MR when ready" --> DEV_MR
    DEV_MR-- "squash + FF merge" --> DEV

    %% Dev → Main
    DEV -- "Manual rebase" --> MAIN
    DEV -- "Auto MR if commit contains [r] action" --> MAIN_MR
    MAIN_MR -- "FF merge" --> MAIN

main

The official mainline.
Contains only stable and released code.
Receives changes only from the dev branch.
Merges fromdev into main may happen:
- Manually, or
- Automatically, if a commit merged into dev contains [r] in the commit title.

dev

The branch for continuous, validated development.
Only allowed to contain commits that have passed sanity checks.
Developers do not commit directly to dev.
All changes arrive via Merge Requests from feature branches.

Feature branches

Named arbitrarily by developers (e.g., feature/foo, fix/bar).
Always branch off from dev.
Developers may commit freely here.

2. Development Workflow

Create a feature branch

git checkout dev
git pull
git checkout -b feature/my-feature

3. CI/CD

Event / Branch	verify	build	test	autotag	docs	release
push → main	✅	✅	✅	❌	✅	❌/✅ optional
PR → main	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌	❌
push → dev	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌
PR → dev	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌	❌
push → any other	❌	✅	✅	❌	❌	❌