git-lava

We at WebEngage use git flow as the branching model for our code repositories and find creating a hotfix manually an error prone and mundane chore

This is how we normally went about

• have all changes ready on the master branch
• look through git log to find the version of the (next) hotfix
• start hotfix
• commit changes in the hotfix branch
• finish up hotfix
• push commits to origin/master and origin/develop
• push the tag to origin

Now git lava automates this process for us and even rollbacks the entire operation in case of an error 👍

Demo

Tag prefix

A project may need a 'tag prefix'. Tag prefix starts the names of the hotfix tag and branch

For example, with prefix shifu in hotfix version 3.1.4, the change commit is tagged as shifu-3.1.4 and hotfix branch created as hotfix/shifu-3.1.4

Important prerequisites

If you intend to use git lava, first check whether your project meets all these prerequisites

• project must use the git flow branching model
• project must follow semantic versioning
• git lava searches git log for commit messages like Merge branch 'hotfix/shifu-7.2.1' into develop to find the next hotfix version, so you must keep the merge commit messages in the same (default) format
• atleast one release must have been previously created in the repository
• release names should also incorporate the tag prefix
  • if the tag prefix is set shifu, release branches need to be named like release/shifu-7.1
  • and if its omitted (set as -), release branches must be like release/7.1

Installation

git lava only works on *nixes (including Mac OS X)

1. You'll need to have git-flow installed first

2. Navigate to a directory in $PATH where you have write access and execute

   curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/WebEngage/git-lava/master/git-lava > git-lava
   

3. In a git repository, set the 'tag prefix' as decided for that project. If the project doesn't have such a prefix, set it as - (a hyphen)

   git config gitlava.tagprefix <prefix>
   

Usage

git lava [<commit message>]

If <commit message> is omitted, user is prompted for the message later in $GIT_EDITOR

All unstaged but tracked changes (except for submodules) are also automatically included in the hotfix. Explicitly git add submodules and new files before running git lava to include them in the hotfix

License - WTFPL

            DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO PUBLIC LICENSE
                    Version 2, December 2004

 Copyright (C) 2015 WebEngage <geeks {at} webengage.com>

 Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim or modified
 copies of this license document, and changing it is allowed as long
 as the name is changed.

            DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO PUBLIC LICENSE
   TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION

  0. You just DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO.