I have to upload a new project to TFS. This project is already finished but it is not under control version yet.
I have decided to work with two branches: main, dev. In my case release is not necessary, I can do all the stuff using feature isolation branching strategy.
Initially I create a team project. Using team explorer from Visual Studio I create two folders: Main and Dev under team project.
First I upload project to Main folder.
From now on each time a new feature must be implemented I create a dev branch from Main folder and put it under dev folder, let's say dev_branch_01. This dev branch will be short-lived.
The implementation of this feature is divided into parts. Each part is done by a developer so each developer creates a new short-lived branch from the dev_branch_01 just created in order to implement the assigned part. When all developers have completed their part, they merge their dev branch into dev_branch_01 and resolve conflicts.
Once all the parts have been merged into dev_branch_01, QA Team makes the necessary tests against this branch. When all tests are passed by QA Team, dev_branch_01 is merged into Main branch.
Here, I have a doubt: all the short-lived dev branches done from dev_branch_01 by each developer could be deleted? Also dev_branch_01 could be deleted as well?
Later in future, when a new feature must be implemented, we repeat the process again, I mean, we create a new short-lived dev branch from main branch, let's say dev_branch_02 and we repeat the entire process explained above.
We always have one main branch and many short-lived dev branches.
I would like to know if the way we work with main and dev branches is correct.
Lest break this question:
Here, I have a doubt: all the short-lived dev branches done from dev_branch_01 by each developer could be deleted?
In TFS the branch are not physically deleted, when you first delete, TFS will just Hide from the main view, image bellow. because that you can't name a branch 2 times with the same name, to reuse a name you need to force delete which I don't recommend.
So, the answer for your first question the answer is yes, it can be delete without problem, just remember, you can't create a new branch with the same name in the future.
If you want to see deleted branches click in the button Xx in your Source Control Explorer. With this option, you'll see all the history of your old branches which is good because is the kind of think that you don't have with Git ease.
Also dev_branch_01 could be deleted as well?
I don't recommend that for 2 reasons
1 - I understand that you'll want to recreate this branch in the future and like i said, you can't create a branch 2 times with the same name.
2 - With this branch alive you will be able to restore a deleted branch for any reason that you'll find and keep the history consistence between branches.
Related
I have a project folder called as "APP1" . We are currently deploying code from this folder . we would like to create one more folder or branch so that Dev can easily checkin all their new changes without directly affecting the main folder .
Should we have one more branch of folder "APP1" so that Dev can checkin all their changes in the newly created branch and eventually we can merge all the new changes to the main folder "APP1"?
Is this a correct approach and how easy it will be for us to merge all the new changes to the main folder ?
We have team of about 4 developers working on the same project .
You can consider using Basic Branch Plan. The structure like this Development <-- Main --> Release. You can branch your project "Main" into two, one named "Development", the other one named "Release". All users can work in Development branch, after they test their code, then merge to Main branch. When you want to release your project, you can merge your code from Main branch to Release branch.
That would be one way to do it. You'll likely need to play around with differing branching and merging strategies until you figure out what works for you and your team.
There's a large guide put together by the ALM rangers for TFS branching and merging strategies. See https://vsarbranchingguide.codeplex.com/
Here's a picture from one of their guides describing the potential branching/merging strategies that may work for your team, depending on team size and release cadence:
The Microsoft ALM Team describe the Basic Branch Plan as needing a MAIN, DEV, and RELEASE branch.
I am working on introducing branching/merging to a new team who currently uses source control with no branches whatsoever.
I was wondering how the RELEASE branch is actually used.
Can changes be made in the DEV branch then be merged up to the MAIN branch without needing a RELEASE branch? MAIN would still be read-only. It would basically be the RELEASE branch in essence. The reason I say this is because we don't have that many changes but I want to isolate the stable code from new changes. Our concept of a "release" per say is not yet well defined. I am still working on that.
I just don't know if my team needs a RELEASE branch (considering our needs specifically).
I would appreciate some comment about the strategy of just having a MAIN and DEV branch.
Typically the release branch(es) are used for "safekeeping". Basically the same as a label.
Releases to production are usually a pretty important event, and you want to know exactly what source you released (in case you ever need to go back to it). Way back when people used to create Labels to track this, but creating Release branches is better for a couple reasons:
Labels are mutable in TFS, meaning somebody could change a label and there would be no audit trail
Branches are also mutable of course (changes can be checked in), but this can be locked down via branch specific permissions
Also if a change is made to a Release branch (which it never should be), at least you have an audit trail through history
Even though a branch looks like a heavy-weight operation creating a copy of your entire code base, in reality TFS just creates a new pointer to the same files, so the storage cost is trivial
I went the other way when I implemented TFS at a client (replaced SVN). What I did was introduce a MAIN branch and a RELEASE branch and not a DEV branch initially as that seemed very confusing to the team. It is also hard to convey the purpose of a DEV branch to an SVN familiar team initially.
The main purpose of our RELEASE branch was to preserve a historical placeholder as said in another answer. Currently we are using Git and we have a CI server that does the release process and branches to release/$version_number. I think that concept might be easier to understand and convey to your team. i.e. automatically create release branches when you actually release.
We have been using TFS 2010 to manage work items and sprints for a while now and have recently added on a dedicated QA person. What I need to be able to do is to either create a build definition that I can run on a scheduled basis (Tuesdays at 9pm for instance) that will only build and/or deploy the Work Items that are in a State of "ReadyToDeploy". Or a way to get a list of files to push based on the TFS API.
My end goal is to have a way to automate the release process so that only the items that have passed QA are sent to our staging environment weekly. Then the customer or QA can approve that the items work in staging which is a mirror of production, and another process or build definition will deploy those items which will be in a different state.
I have modified the work items and work flows to accomplish the different states, but I am having an issue getting either a build of just the fixes or a list of all the files to push based on the state of the work item.
I am open to any ideas or solutions for this, the alternative is that I have to manage the list of files and manually push files every week and I am trying to get away from that.
Thanks,
Edit: The way we have it setup now, is that each developer has their own branch and own website, our software is server based and has to be run on a particular server. Our Trunk is linked to the main dev website. This is where QA initially does their testing to move an item to the ready to deploy status. When a dev is ready for QA they check in their changes in their branch and merge into the trunk. The builds are created off of the trunk at the moment. On our deployment nights I open up the trunk website in VS and do a publish then take those files compared against a list the developers have given me and ftp the compiled files to our production server.
I could be wrong, but I am not aware of a way to tell a build to avoid certain changesets based on the state of an attached work item.
I think the only way you could achieve this would be to create a Release branch and perform a daily merge of changesets that are in the "ReadyToDeploy" state. When you merge, you are able to cherry pick changesets, but they must be contiguous. This means that you would have to perform multiple merges to get the Release branch into the appropriate condition.
We have operated something similar for many years and it works well for us. Many people will tell you that it's bad practice, and it probably is, but that is for you to decide.
As for automating this for a build, I don't think it would be a trivial job. The hardest part will be the merge. You might think that there will be no conflicts as it is a one-way merge, but having done this for a number of years, I can tell you that conflicts do arise.
Step By Step Explanation
Create a branch off the trunk called release
When you want to do a deploy, merge from the trunk into release, but only cherry pick the ReadyToDeploy changesets. This may take several merges as the changesets must be contiguous.
Fire off a build / deploy of the release branch.
Repeat steps 2 - 3 as your release schedule allows.
You could do something automatic, it would require an extensive bit of coding. It would also require a branching strategy so that, Dev, Staging, and Production all come from their own branches.
Set up a process that uses the TFS API to scan for items in that state
Use API to Traverse Items to get check ins attached
Use API to Get latest of source and target branch
Use API to Merge by change set (identified in #2) (this is non trivial, have to handle lots of cases, but merging should all be 1 way with no conflicts, so doable)
Use API to Check In
Kick off Compile Build
If Compile Build Successful kick off Publish Build
To the best of my knowledge there is a major issue with this approach. Say you have two changesets: # 1 and 2. Both of them containing modification for the same file. Now changeset #2 contains its own changes plus changes from #1.
If you decide to pull in changeset 2 and skip #1 guess what's gonna happen. You are going to suck in changes from #1. This is obviously a problem.
Currently we have a branch structure like this: Develop --> Release. I want to change it so that it looks like what the TFS Branching Guidance document calls "Basic Branch Plan". It looks like this Develop <-- Main --> Release.
I was going to do this:
Rename Develop to Main (creating Main --> Release)
Creating a branch from this Main reusing the "Develop" name (creating Develop <-- Main --> Release)
Will I have problems with TFS reusing an old branch name for a new branch? Know any gotchas or things to look out for?
Additional Info
I did this in a test instance creating test branches without any files, pending changes, history, etc. (not a good real test) and TFS let me do the rename and branch without difficulty. However, I won't feel comfortable with this unless I can take our production TFS project collection, restore it in the test instance, and test the rename/branch on real data. There is a lot of history and branches there and I don't know what will happen. As noted in the answer, there are other considerations before doing this.
I'm preparing to do similar steps (except I'm moving subfolder locations of both parent and a child while grandchildren stay put.)
QUESTIONS:
When are you planning the rename?
Are there any child branches under Develop branch that you didn't mention?
Do you have any shelvesets against Develop that might be impacted by the rename?
General answer: Proceed with caution. From my reading branch renaming in TFS2010 can cause a few unexpected side effects. TFS will be doing the following steps (under the hood) for your scenario:
Rename Develop to Main ==> Branch Main branch from Develop, then delete Develop branch
Create new "Develop" branch from Main
I recommend reading the following posts:
Renaming Branches in TFS 2010 (ChandruR’s Blog)
"MSDN Blogs > ChandruR's Blog > Renaming branches in TFS 2010
So my recommendations for this case:
Avoid renaming branches - a cleaner solution would be to, at the right point in your release merge all changes to a parent branch and then re-branch to create a new branch hierarchy.
Or for the brave of heart :)
You will need to time the rename of your branch, to a point in your release where you can merge to all related branches. The steps to follow are:
..."
Renaming branches in TFS2010 - But it works on my PC!
“In TFS 2010 behind the scenes a rename is actually a branch and delete process, this meant we ended up with the new branch, but also a deleted branch of the old name. This is not obvious unless you have ‘show deleted items in source control explorer’ enabled…”
"Now implemented as a branch + delete behind the scenes (new name is branched from the old, then the old name is deleted). This allows traceability in History, but allows us to get around the problems with merging renames (see Add, Rename, Add scenario). "
.
RANDOM THOUGHTS
Get all devs to merge (or abandon) all safe changes in child branches of Dev. Also prune any inactive branches before the rename.
Read above articles.
Search to find the page (that I haven't found yet) that describes exactly what will happen in simpler terms based on real experience.
Specifically I'd like to know what happens to shelvesets on the Develop branch after it is renamed to Main. (Next step can answer this.)
You might consider making a "Sandbox" Team Project (or Team Project Collection) then try out your scenario to see if there are major issues.
Pick right timing (see link#1) and go for it.
Check history, do a merge between the renamed branches, check history again.
Allow developers back in.
Good luck, and post back with any new information (including your end results)! -zs
There are several/many questions regarding TFS branching strategy, but I am haven't been able to come up with a strategy that fits with my scenario. My TFS project consists of a single solution that contains a Web Project, a Business Layer Project, and a Data Layer Project. The project is a portal of reports. Reports are largely isolated in subfolders within the project. There are however some features across the entire project such as session management. Over a given period of time, the workflow may occur as follows:
Stable snapshot of code.
Development of Report A begins.
Development of Report B begins.
The project with the inclusion of Report A needs to be pushed to our qa environment.
The project with the inclusion of Report A and Report B needs to be pushed to our qa environment.
The project with only the inclusion of Report B needs to be pushed to our prod environment.
So basically, each report is on a completely independent timetable. I need to be able to independently publish a branch of code to our different environments. Currently, we don't have branching - we just don't add a link to a new feature if the project gets published when a report isn't ready but is included in the project. Not the best scenario.
My initial go at a branching strategy was to have Main sit between the QA and prod environments, basically as just a container to merge before branching to a production branch for a production publish. Each report would be developed on a branch from main. For both our test and qa environments, a branch from main would be created and the appropriate development branch(es) would be merged into this "proposed updates" branch. This doesn't work though because I am merging development/feature branches into a branch that isn't the parent branch. I can't have Main at this level because a Report may be in development for weeks while another may be on a timetable that has it developed and pushed through the process to production in only a few days. My "proposed update" branches for test and qa need to be able to be independently created from a merging of only the appropriate dev branch(es).
My only experience with branching/merging is a main+dev pair of branches, so I'm very out of my element here. How can I setup my branching in such a way that I am able to merge features in on independent timetables without getting stuck and code being published to an environment before it is ready?
If it matters, we are on TFS 2008 right now and hope to go to TFS 2010 soon. This is an immediate need to get going on our current TFS 2008 server though.
I'm not exactly clear on everything; reading comprehension and all.
As I understand it, your current process is Dev -> Test -> QA -> Production. Devs work on code, push it to an environment where they can test on it. Once satisfied, they push it to QA, and when code passes it moves into production.
In addition, you have several "teams" (1 or more devs) that must work on separate reports, each of which must eventually be moved through the above process into Production. Teams may be working on code that is distinct from all others, or teams may find they cannot move their code forward until other teams reach stability.
If I were in charge of branching for this solution, I would recommend the following.
First, create a Production branch. This branch only contains production code. Only your QA team touches this branch.
Next, create a QA branch. This branch is also maintained solely by QA teams. They manually merge test code into this branch, run their quality assurance tests, then merge with Production. Every time they merge with Production, or test code is accepted into QA, a label is applied to the branch. If test code fails, the branch is reverted back to the prior label.
Development teams manage their own branches. They are created by branching from QA at the latest label. This assures they are working with the latest approved code. Developers work with and test on this branch. If teams have a dependency on each other, they should work on the same branch, unless it becomes clear that creating secondary branches from their shared Dev branch would be easier. Once a Dev branch meets the milestones set for the developers, QA should be informed that the branch is ready for merging with QA for testing.
Alternatively, depending on how complex development is, you might even consider uniting the QA and Production branches. Often, it is a simple matter to add a label to a branch to indicate a stable, production worthy build. It also keeps the branching strategy as simple as possible, which is always a good thing.
I think you should look at the Branching Guidance put together by the VS ALM Rangers.
http://tfsbranchingguideiii.codeplex.com/
This should alswer all of your questions. You are looking at quite an advanced branch plan. I also have some good practical guidance on my blog. I know that I am talking about Scrum teams, but it is basicaly Feature branching based on the Guidance.
http://blog.hinshelwood.com/archive/2010/04/14/guidance-a-branching-strategy-for-scrum-teams.aspx
If you get a chance please vote over
at the new "Visual Studio ALM"
StackExchange over in Area51 as we are
trying to setup a place dedicated to
answering these questions with the
Visual Studio ALM MVP's and Visual
Studio ALM Rangers on hand to answer
your questions.
http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/15894/visual-studio-alm
[I know this question is old but this may help others that come across this question]
Most "branch per feature" teams use one "main" branch and break away from the branch per environment approach. Environment releases can be handled by clearly labeling each environmental release on the MAIN branch.
The QA release is the result of merging all features/issue branches considered fully tested and ready for QA into MAIN. As bugs are found, new bug branches are branched off of MAIN, which are fixed and merged back to MAIN. When all QA releases are deemed ready for production, a PROD build is made from MAIN. In short MAIN is the one source of truth for code.
If you need to work ahead, an integration-test branch (TEST) can be used to determine what features are "production ready," but feature/issue branches should be merged to MAIN on a case-by-case basis, rather than in bulk from the TEST branch.
Hotfixes can be branched from the PROD label, then fixed, tested and merged back to MAIN for a new PROD release.
I'm going to refer you to a great video on Branch per Feature. It focuses on GIT, but the strategies do not depend on GIT and can be used just as effectively on TFS SCC: https://youtu.be/9SZ7kSQ2424