Guide to Creating Feature Branches, Pull Requests, and Releases

Creating a Feature Branch

From the Command Line

1. Ensure you are on develop and up-to-date

git checkout develop
git pull origin develop

2. Create and switch to a new feature branch

git checkout -b {issue-number}-{short-description}

3. Push the feature branch to the remote

git push origin {issue-number}-{short-description}

From GitHub Website

1. Navigate to the repository on GitHub.
2. Click on the "Branches" dropdown and select "New branch".
3. Name the branch following the naming convention to be created from develop.

Creating a Pull Request to Merge a Feature Branch into develop

**Note: **It’s a good idea to rebase your feature branch before making a PR if you do not have the latest changes from develop in your branch. See rebasing instructions.

1. Go to GitHub and navigate to the “Pull Requests” tab of the repository.
2. Click "New Pull Request".
3. Select develop as the base branch and your feature branch as the compare branch.
4. Use the provided PR template, add a title and description, then click "Create Pull Request".
5. Once PR is approved, click "Merge Pull Request" and delete your feature branch.

Creating a GitHub Release

From GitHub Website

1. Navigate to the repository on GitHub.
2. Click on "Releases" > "Draft a new release".
3. Select main as the target branch.
4. Tag the release with a version number (e.g., v1.0.0).
5. Add a title and a description summarizing the changes.
6. Click "Publish Release".

More information on GitHub Releases here.