Git: merging a development branch into master

Prerequisites

• local master is up-to-date

Steps

1. First create an integration branch out of your development branch
   git checkout -b myfeature-int
   
   1. This guarantees that you won't spoil your development branch
   2. This is especially valid for dev branches that are also remote, we should never rewrite the history of a shared branch
       
2. Then rebase that new branch onto master
   git rebase -i master myfeature-int
   
   1. Ideally you do an interactive rebase with the -i flag, so that you can squash, reorder, or drop commits
   2. Having 3 commits for subsequently renaming a class is an ideal candidate for squashing
   3. Don't hesitate to re-do it several times over. It's easier to, for example, first reorder some commits, make sure they can be re-applied in that order, then do a second rebase to squash'em.
3. Publish that integration branch, so this can be used for reviews
   git push -u origin myfeature-int
4. Now all your commits are stacked on top of the latest master, therefore merging to master should be a fast-forward. We want to enforce this.
   git checkout master
git merge myfeature-int --ff-only
   
   1. This will reject non fast-forward merges
       
5. Finally if you have to pull again from master before pushing, don't forget to do a pull rebase.
   git pull --rebase
    
6. Delete your integration branch
   git branch -d myfeature-int
   If you pushed it, then delete the remote branch too: git push origin --delete myfeature-int

Result

• Your branch commits are flattened into master's history
• You can keep working on your dev branch
  
  • remote tracking is not spoiled by the rebase
  • then reapply the same pattern for the next merge to master