Contributing

Branching strategy and development workflow for restarters.net.

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Branch Structure

Branch	Purpose
develop	Integration branch — all feature work targets this
master	Production-ready; always deployable
production	CI deploy trigger — merge master → production to ship

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Feature Work

1. Branch off develop:

   git checkout develop
   git pull
   git checkout -b DOT-1234_short-description
   

2. Keep the branch up to date: merge develop in regularly to avoid large divergence.
3. Push and open a pull request against develop.
4. Code review before merge.

Branch naming: use the issue ID (GitHub or Jira) followed by an underscore and a short description, e.g. DOT-1346_safari-timepicker.

External contributors should fork the repository and open a pull request from their fork.

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Hotfixes (urgent production bugs)

1. Branch off master (not develop):

   git checkout master
   git pull
   git checkout -b hotfix/short-description
   

2. Fix, test, PR against master.
3. After merge, immediately merge master → develop to keep branches in sync.
4. Deploy: merge master → production and push (see docs/fly-deployment.md).

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Releases / Deployment

See docs/fly-deployment.md for full deployment instructions.

The short version:

git checkout production
git merge master
git push
# CircleCI auto-deploys to restarters.net

Never deploy develop or master directly to the restarters Fly app. Always go via the production branch.