# Branching and Release Management Guide

## Overview

This guide outlines the naming conventions, branching strategy, and merging process for our Git repository.

## Branch Naming Conventions

### Feature Branches

- **Naming Convention**: `feature/<workstream>_<version>`
  - Example: `feature/streamlit_UI0_1.0`, `feature/textract_1.5`

## Branching Strategy

### Creating Feature Branches

1. **From Release Branch**: Create a feature branch from `release/uat_<version>`
   - Example: To develop Streamlit UI1 v1.5, create `feature/streamlit_UI1_1.5` from `release/uat_1.0`

### Merging Process

#### Merging to DEV

1. **Initial Merge**: Once the feature is ready, merge the feature branch into DEV.
2. **Verification**: Ensure the functionality is verified in DEV.

#### Merging to UAT

1. **Approval Requirement**: Merge to UAT requires approval from default reviewers (Anup / Priya / Umang).
2. **Post-Approval Merge**: After approval, merge the same feature branch that was verified in DEV into UAT.

#### Merging to PROD

1. **Final Merge**: Once the feature is tested and approved in UAT, merge it into PROD.
2. **Complete Versions**: Deployment to PROD should only be done with complete versions (e.g., v1.0, v2.0) with an appropriate release branch in place.

## State of Branches

### After Initial Release (v1.0)
| Workstream | DEV | UAT | PROD |
|------------|-----|-----|------|
| Streamlit  | 1.0 | 1.0 | 1.0  |
| Textract   | 1.0 | 1.0 | 1.0  |
| DevOps     | 1.0 | 1.0 | 1.0  |
| Data       | 1.0 | 1.0 | 1.0  |

### After Streamlit 1.5 and Textract 1.5
| Workstream | DEV | UAT | PROD |
|------------|-----|-----|------|
| Streamlit  | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.0  |
| Textract   | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.0  |
| DevOps     | 1.0 | 1.0 | 1.0  |
| Data       | 1.0 | 1.0 | 1.0  |

## Merge Restrictions

- **Workstream Specific Changes**: For feature branches, only changes in the respective folder are allowed. Other changes require a separate feature branch. This ensures that workstream changes are deployed to the respective infra. 
- **Merge Approval**: Merging into DEV, UAT or PROD requires approval from default reviewers.

## Refer to the branching guide in Confluence for more info on this 

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This guide ensures that all team members follow the best practices for branch management and releases.