git-flow

Pure-Python implementation of Git extensions to provide high-level repository operations for Vincent Driessen's branching model.

Getting started

For the best introduction to get started with git flow, please read Jeff Kreeftmeijer's blog post http://jeffkreeftmeijer.com/2010/why-arent-you-using-git-flow.

Or have a look at one of these screen casts:

• How to use a scalable Git branching model called git-flow (by Build a Module)
• A short introduction to git-flow (by Mark Derricutt)
• On the path with git-flow (by Dave Bock)

Installing git-flow

You can install git-flow, using:

easy_install gitflow

Or, if you'd like to use pip instead:

pip install gitflow

git-flow requires at least Python 2.5.

Integration with your shell

For those who use the Bash or ZSH shell, please check out the excellent work on the git-flow-completion project by bobthecow. It offers tab-completion for all git-flow subcommands and branch names.

Please help out

This project is still under development. Feedback and suggestions are very welcome and I encourage you to use the Issues list on Github to provide that feedback.

Feel free to fork this repo and to commit your additions. For a list of all contributors, please see the file AUTHORS.txt.

You will need unittest2 to run the tests.

License terms

git-flow is published under the liberal terms of the BSD License, see the file LICENSE.txt. Although the BSD License does not require you to share any modifications you make to the source code, you are very much encouraged and invited to contribute back your modifications to the community, preferably in a Github fork, of course.

git flow usage

Initialization

To initialize a new repo with the basic branch structure, use:

git flow init [-d]

This will then interactively prompt you with some questions on which branches you would like to use as development and production branches, and how you would like your prefixes be named. You may simply press Return on any of those questions to accept the (sane) default suggestions.

The -d flag will accept all defaults.

Creating feature/release/hotfix/support branches

• To list/start/finish feature branches, use:

  git flow feature
  git flow feature start <name> [<base>]
  git flow feature finish <name>
  

  For feature branches, the <base> arg must be a commit on develop.

• To push/pull a feature branch to the remote repository, use:

  git flow feature publish <name>
  git flow feature pull <remote> <name>
  

• To list/start/finish release branches, use:

  git flow release
  git flow release start <release> [<base>]
  git flow release finish <release>
  

  For release branches, the <base> arg must be a commit on develop.

• To list/start/finish hotfix branches, use:

  git flow hotfix
  git flow hotfix start <release> [<base>]
  git flow hotfix finish <release>
  

  For hotfix branches, the <base> arg must be a commit on master.

• To list/start support branches, use:

  git flow support
  git flow support start <release> <base>
  

  For support branches, the <base> arg must be a commit on master.

History of the Project

gitflow was originally developed by Vincent Driessen as a set of shell-scripts. In Juni 2007 he started a Python rewrite but did not finish it. In February 2012 Hartmut Goebel started completing the Python rewrite and asked Vincent to pull his changes. But in June 2012 Vincent closed the pull-request and deleted his python-rewrite branch. So Hartmut decided to release the Python rewrite on his own.

Showing your appreciation

Of course, the best way to show your appreciation for the git-flow tool itself remains contributing to the community. If you'd like to show your appreciation in another way, however, consider donating through PayPal: