Step-by-step Instructions for Bugfix or Feature

Set up your Git environment (for first-time contributors):

• Make sure you have your basic Git environment set up.

Choose a bug:

• Find a bug or feature you like; nail down your JIRA ticket; if necessary, file it in JIRA.

Development cycle:

• Update your (forked & locally cloned) repository's master branch with the golden repository's master (IMPORTANT: Your fork's master branch should not be touched with any of your development changes. It should just reflect the golden repository's master, exactly).

• Create a development branch for the ticket that you would like to work on and name it with the JIRA ID of the ticket:

• Look at the checklist for developing code. 

• Develop your code:

• Complete the development on your newly created branch. 

  • Commit changes in the updated file to your branch with a good commit message.  Make your commit message relevant and concise, so that it will be helpful to you later:

    git add <updated file>

    git commit -m "<Commit message>"

Tip: Commit often, perfect later.

• Push the development branch to your fork.  By convention,  'origin' points to your forked repository on GitHub:

• Repeat the above steps until you are satisfied with your code change.

• Fetch changes made to the golden repository by other contributors.  By convention, 'upstream' points to the golden repository on GitHub:

  git fetch upstream

• Rebase your development branch with new changes from the golden repository's master. 'upstream/master' is the remote tracking branch for the golden repository's (upstream's) master branch, on your local machine:

  git checkout <JIRA ID>
  

  git rebase upstream/master

• If there are conflicts, Git will throw an error message informing you so and ask you to resolve it before continuing the rebase.
  • Resolve conflicts the same way you resolve an ordinary merge conflict in Git. Here's a way to resolve conflicts from the command line.

  • Then, just continue the rebase operation:

    git rebase --continue

  • If the conflict is complex or problematic, you can abort the current rebase operation instead of continuing, and come back to it later:

    git rebase --abort

• After the rebase is complete, you might want to clean up your branch's commit history:
  

  • Squash all your commits into fewer, meaningful change commits (just one suffices if the code change is small enough).

    git checkout <JIRA ID>

    git rebase -i --fork-point master

  • Write meaningful commit messages for your commits while doing the squash above. You can also use git commit --amend or rebase if you'd rather do it later.

• Finally, push the polished branch to your fork. Because you did a git rebase, you'll need to do a force push.

  git push -f origin <JIRA ID>
  

• Look at the checklist for developing code.
• Your code changes are good to go! Go ahead and create a pull request.

• Your changes are now ready to be reviewed.

Review and check-in:

Cleanup:

• Housekeeping: we strongly recommend that you delete the development branch from your forked and cloned repos now.

  git checkout master

  git push origin --delete <JIRA ID> (deletes <JIRA ID> from the fork)

  git branch -D <JIRA ID> (deletes <JIRA ID> from local clone)

• Update your bug.