| name | promoting-dev-to-main |
| description | Use when preparing, reviewing, resolving conflicts for, or merging a CORAL release pull request from the long-lived dev branch into main. |
Promoting dev to main
Core rule
Merge dev → main release PRs with a merge commit. Never squash or rebase
these promotions.
Ordinary contribution PRs still target dev and may be squash-merged. The
release promotion is the exception because main must retain dev in its
ancestry. Squashing a promotion makes the next release re-present old commits
and can create large false conflicts.
Workflow
-
Confirm the PR is exactly base=main, head=dev and no duplicate release
PR is open.
-
Review main..dev, required CI, and deployment checks.
-
In GitHub, open the merge-method dropdown and choose Create a merge
commit. With the CLI, use:
gh pr merge <number> --repo Human-Agent-Society/CORAL --merge
-
Keep the long-lived dev branch. Do not delete or force-push it.
-
Fetch both branches and verify the released dev tip is an ancestor of
main:
git fetch origin dev main
git merge-base --is-ancestor origin/dev origin/main
Exit status 0 is required.
-
Confirm post-merge CI, release automation, deployments, and production
smoke checks.
If GitHub reports conflicts
Do not force-rebase the shared dev branch. First inspect the topology and
reproduce conflicts with git merge-tree.
If an earlier release was squash-merged, main may have the same tree as an
earlier dev commit without sharing its ancestry. Verify tree equivalence
before choosing a repair. Prefer merging main back into dev and pushing
normally; use an ancestry-only ours merge only when exact tree equality
proves main contains no unique content to preserve.
Red flags
- GitHub's primary button says Squash and merge.
- A command uses
--squash, --rebase, or a force-push.
- The release workflow proposes deleting
dev.
- Conflict resolution starts before checking commit topology and tree equality.
Stop when any red flag appears and return to the workflow above.
Quick reference
| PR | Allowed merge method |
|---|
Feature/fix/docs branch → dev | Repository default; usually squash |
dev → main release promotion | Merge commit only |
