The GitLab Flow

Enhance Software Engineering Quality

Adopting GitLab Flow

Basic Git Concept
Challenges of Software Engineering in a Scale
How GitLab Flow Solve?
GitLab Flow Explained
Live Demo

Enhance Software Engineering Quality by

Adopting GitLab Flow

zsh (Z Shell)

branch name

directory name

last command return

git status

Basic Git Concept

git merge

(master)$ git merge feature-1

Basic Git Concept

git rebase

(feature-1)$ git rebase master

Basic Git Concept

git squash

(feature-1)$ git rebase -i C1

Basic Git Concept

git cherry-pick

(master)$ git cherry-pick C6
(release-1)$ git cheery-pick C6

Challenges of Software Engineering in a Scale

Code Changes
Release Management
Task Reporting
Code & Commit Quality
Confident Level of Resolving Conflict

Challenges of Software Engineering in a Scale

Code Changes Challenges

Complex Git History (Untraceable)

Inconsistent Git Commit Message

Challenges of Software Engineering in a Scale

Release Management Challenges

Tag Management

Branch Management

Inconsistent Branching

Inconsistent Tags

Challenges of Software Engineering in a Scale

Task Reporting Challenges

git add .

git commit -m "add fancy animation"

git pull --rebase

git push

Manually Synchronize Task Status

git add .

git commit -m "hotfix sql injection"

git pull --rebase

git push

Maintain Task & Commit Relationship

Report progress

Report bugfix

Challenges of Software Engineering in a Scale

Code & Commit Quality Challenges I

Unnecessary Complexity

Inconsistent Code Style

Brainless Copy and Paste

Challenges of Software Engineering in a Scale

Code & Commit Quality Challenges II

Unnecessary Merge Commit

Fragmented Commit History

Challenges of Software Engineering in a Scale

Confident Level of Resolving Conflict I

Unwanted Bad Code exist in Git History

A sunny day, CI run successfully on your branch...

but it failed on CI after merged into master

“Developer should run local test before push”

Some Integration Tests on CI might NOT available locally .

Challenges of Software Engineering in a Scale

Confident Level of Resolving Conflict II

Unwanted Bad Commit & Merge exist in Git History

“I won't directly commit to master”

forgot to checkout master before doing the hotfix and merge, things get worse

Challenges of Software Engineering in a Scale

Consequences

Not able to Scale

High Maintenance Cost

High Turn-over overhead

Unwanted Bad Commit & Merge exist in Git History

Unnecessary Merge Commit

Fragmented Commit History

Unnecessary Complexity

Inconsistent Code Style

Brainless Copy and Paste

Manually Synchronize Task Status

Maintain Task & Commit Relationship

Inconsistent Branching

Inconsistent Tags

Complex Git History (Untraceable)

Inconsistent Git Commit Message

Sign Of Poor Software Engineering Quality

Difficult to Collaborate

Inefficient Development

Unnecessary Complex Development Procedures

How GitLab Flow Solve?

“GitLab Flow provides list of best practices”

https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/topics/gitlab_flow.html

“Combining those best practices to solve all challenges in whatever scale”

How GitLab Flow Solve?

However...

“Enforce the best practices by GitLab Project Settings”

“Rules without enforcement are merely

words on paper. ”

How GitLab Flow Solve?

Merge ONLY via Merge Request
Enforce Linear History
Enforce Naming Convention
Upstream first policy
Stable Branches and Tag Release
JIRA Integration

Proposed Minimal Practices

GitLab Flow Explained

Merge ONLY via Merge Request I

No Local merge & push

Who can approve merge request

GitLab Flow Explained

Merge ONLY via Merge Request II

Senior / SA are accountable to the merge requests

Senior / SA has also no special authority to bypass Merge Request

GitLab Flow Explained

Merge ONLY via Merge Request II

Back-Traceable Merge Request Records for performance review

Code Review Process

GitLab Flow Explained

Enforce Linear History I

Linear history (NOT create merge commit, only allow fast-forward merge)
Semi-linear history (create merge commit, only allow fast-forward merge)
Non-linear history (Free style)

Linear

Semi-Linear

Non-linear

GitLab Flow Explained

Enforce Linear History II

“Quality always comes with cost”

The cost of learning how to achieve fast-forward merge

# Linear. Mostly used commands to achieve fast-forward merge
git pull --rebase

git rebase origin/master

git rebase -i HEAD~2

git cherry-pick bacb7ca8

# Rewrited git history, need force push
git push --force origin some-branch

# Non linear. Mostly used commands
git merge
git push

GitLab Flow Explained

Enforce Linear History III

Settings > General > Merge Requests

GitLab Flow Explained

Enforce Naming Conventions - Branch

Feature branch

{JIRA projectKey}-{JIRA issueId}-{some descriptive wording}

Hotfix branch

{JIRA projectKey}-{JIRA issueId}-hotfix-{some descriptive wording}

Examples

ABC-345-create-registration-api

DEF-25-impl-registration-flow-ui

Examples

ABC-543-hotfix-registration-crash

DEF-478-hotfix-alert-dialog-showing-empty

GitLab Flow Explained

Enforce Naming Conventions - Release Branch & Tag

Release branch

{major}-{minor}-stable

Tag

{major}.{minior}.{patch}-{env}.{build}

Examples

1.0-stable (includes all 1.0.x fix)

1.1-stable (includes all 1.1.x fix)

Examples

1.0.0-prod

1.1.0-alpha.1

1.1.0-uat

GitLab Flow Explained

Upstream First Policy

Create stable branches using master as a starting point, and branch as late as possible.
Merge these bug fixes into master, and then cherry-pick them into the release branch
All bug fixes that applied in release branch must already applied in master