Maintenance Branchs

A maintenance branch is a branch created to publish patches for releases that are no longer being actively developed (e.g. past major releases). For Runway, the naming format of these branches is release/v<major>.

Creating A Maintenance Branch

A new maintenance branch should be created prior to beginning work on a new major release. It is best to create the branch prior to the final planned release (minor or patch) of the outgoing major version. This enables release-drafter to create drafts for future releases.

Important

When releasing the final release of the outgoing major version, create the tag on the maintenance branch.

  1. Clone the repo locally.

  2. Ensure that the default branch (e.g. master) is up to date.

  3. Create the new maintenance branch locally.

  4. Push the maintenance branch to GitHub.

Enable Documentation For A Maintenance Branch

To be completed after the creation of a new maintenance branch.

  1. Navigate to the ReadTheDocs project page

  2. Click Add version.

  3. Input the name of the maintenance branch, activate it, and click Update version.

Patching A Maintenance Branch

  1. Clone the repo locally.

  2. Checkout the maintenance branch and ensure it is up to date.

  3. Create a new branch for the patch, make the required changes, commit the changes, and push to GitHub.

  4. Open a new PR ensuring the change the base branch to the desired maintenance branch.

  5. Merge the PR once all requirements are met.

  6. Refer to the Maintenance Branch release process.

Maintenance Branch End Of Life

TBD